


In Another World

by Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Arlathan, F-Word as a Character, F/M, Feels, Hawke Walks Out of the Fade, He Was Probably Invited To a Lot of Parties, Humor, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Trespasser, Purple Hawke, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Wolf Hunt, Young Solas, Young Solas Sounds Like Much More Fun Than Fen'Harel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard/pseuds/Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard
Summary: The Fade exists in all times and all places.  If there is a way to change the Dread Wolf's heart, Carys Lavellan thinks she'll find it there.She finds more than she expected.* * *“Hawke?” she asked hesitantly.  “Is that you?  Why are you a bird?”The bird fluffed its black and white-barred chest feathers and shook out its wings, which did have a prodigious span.“I’m a hawk, get it?” the bird announced.Carys tilted her head and studied it for a moment.“I think you’re a Greater Marches fish eagle.  They used to roost down by the Waking Sea in those dead snags by the water.”"Balls," said Hawke, and turned back into the Champion of Kirkwall.





	1. In Which Lavellan Enters the Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone ask for another time-travel fix-it fic set in the Fade and Elvhenan? No? 
> 
> Solas said he was once "hot-blooded and cocky, always ready to fight." And that he "adores the heady blend of power, intrigue, danger, and sex that permeates these events." 
> 
> It sounds like he used to be a lot more fun at parties. Let's find out, shall we?

She spent the first month walking in the wrong direction.  She hadn’t gotten much of anything in the way of guidance, after all, and the only precedents had nearly destroyed the world.  She was not prepared for this.  She thought only of trying again, one last time, to change his mind.  And if she failed- her mind halted at that point, could press no further into the future.  Kill him? Kill herself?  Her heart was a swirl of hate, love, desire, pity, revulsion. Reason fled; what could she say that he had not already considered? He had always been able to think three steps ahead of everyone else, the checkmate planned before he nudged the first pawn.  And Carys was not his pawn. She was not the first piece he moved.  No, she was his queen.  She had swept the board clean for him.  And he promised that he would sacrifice her, in the end, to ensure his victory.

So when Dorian’s forces captured him, dragged him into the cells beneath the fortress, and bound him in chains inlaid with pure lyrium, Carys did not believe for a second that they had won some kind of victory.  Solas’ failures were always expunged as thoroughly as Falon’Din’s vallaslin had been erased from her face. 

When he _allowed_ himself to be captured, she assumed that it was because he was close to victory and wished to impart either some final warning or last directive.  He would do that if he could, she knew.  If some slightly larger fraction of her people could be saved once he tore down the Veil by exercise of due preparation, he would tell her.  And she would follow his instructions to the word, Creators help her. If that was all she could do.  She knew that about him and about herself.  He would give her what cold crumbs of kindness he could afford, and she would snatch them up.

She did not think him sentimental enough to simply wish to see her a final time, though Cassandra made that suggestion.  A romantic to the last, though Cassandra was also the first one to suggest a summary execution while Solas was in their putative power.  Carys did not deceive herself that that could be true.  Even though Solas loved her- and she _knew_ that he did- Solas was always cruelest to himself.  If he had simply wanted to see her, he would have stayed away.

Carys sent all guards out and went in unarmed and unprepared.  She remembered the blank and gagging faces of Qunari trapped in stone. There was no need to posture as though she could defend herself.  She simply presented herself before him and waited for him to speak. 

Everything about him hurt her, from his dumb beautiful face to his dumb beautiful voice to the dumb dumb dumb armor and the wolf pelt and his magic and most of all his sad, distant eyes. 

Now she couldn’t even remember what he said at first, or what she said- nonsense and meaningless words- but soon he’d said _let me try one more thing, vhenan_. 

She didn’t know what that meant, should probably have seized the opportunity to ask a few clarifying questions, like, _what do you mean?_ And _have you thought this through better than the last plan?_ And _who, if anyone, needs to die in this plan?_   And _do I need to pack a few things, like perhaps a change of underclothes and some snacks?_

But instead she simply wrapped her remaining hand around a bar of his cell and nodded, helpless to resist him.  Always a fool for that man, she leaned forward to suck a lungful of the same air he was breathing.

He told her only that _the Fade exists in all times and all places.  Somewhere in_ _there is a man who can still change. If you wish to stop me, find him._

Solas opened a rift between them, and like a sheep stumbling to the slaughter, Carys walked through it. Obediently.  Without asking questions. 

It was only once she was through and the rift closed behind her that she realized how helpless she was.  Without Solas’ Mark she had no special power over the Fade.  She was unarmed. Literally.  With no idea of where to go.  

So, by default, Carys started walking towards the Black City.  She had a pretty good idea of what it had once been, anyway.  Arlathan.  The ancient home of her people, and Solas’.  Yet after a month she was no closer, for all her walking, and the silence had given her some time to think about what had happened the last time a  mortal mage had traveled to the Fade in search of the Golden City.

Carys spun on her heel and chose another direction at random.  She hadn’t seen another person since she’d entered, and was not entirely clear on how she was still alive, but she was willing to give walking away from Arlathan another month to see if it got her closer to a version of Solas that she thought she could sway. 

Time was elusive without any change between day and night, but she’d tried to sleep after a while. It had not worked, and she eventually stood up, feeling foolish, and started walking on.  Nor did she feel hunger or thirst.  She recalled the lessons of elders who had entered uthenera; they had not needed sustenance in their sleep, but had drawn their energy directly from the Fade.  She supposed she was doing the same.  Perhaps she was a better mage than she’d always thought. 

She saw fewer spirits- and demons- than she had expected.  It was almost lonely, even to an elf as accustomed to solitude as she was. So when she caught the flicker of movement among a row of Avvar statues, she stopped to pursue it. 

The dark flurry of movement resolved into a large bird which perched on top of the head of a misshapen figure writhing in stone and preened itself with one taloned foot. 

“You’re going the wrong way,” it said in a voice that was much more human than avian. 

Carys had seen stranger things in the Fade, so she nodded and asked the bird which way she should go.

“Fuck if I know,” said the bird.  “Depends on where you’re going.  But that way leads to an Avvar demon of gluttony.  It’s hideous.  It has bear fat in places you’d never want to get _any_ kind of food.  So don’t go that way.”

The bird was offering what sounded like sound advice, but Carys was distracted by the bird’s voice. She _knew_ that voice, although she hadn’t heard it in three years. 

“Hawke?” she asked hesitantly.  “Is that you? Why are you a bird?”

The bird fluffed its black and white-barred chest feathers and shook out its wings, which did have a prodigious span.

“I’m a hawk, get it?” the bird announced. 

Carys tilted her head and studied it for a moment. 

“I think you’re a Greater Marches fish eagle.  They used to roost down by the Waking Sea in those dead snags by the water.” 

“What?” the bird asked, opening its large yellow eyes wide. 

“And I think you’re a male?” Carys added. 

The bird attempted to examine itself for a moment, then shimmered briefly. Its figure blurred into that of Marian Hawke.  She perched on the head of the statue, still wearing the armor of the Champion of Kirkwall.  

“Balls,” said Hawke. 

Carys nodded. Indeed. 


	2. In Which Hawke Asks After Varric

“So where are we going?” Hawke asked.  She had reverted to bird form, and was fluttering from statue to statue as Carys trudged forward in no particular direction.  The human voice emerging from the bird was no longer so disconcerting. After all, in the Fade, even creatures formed of lava and spiders could talk.  And even in the real world, Carys had once met a Rivaini pirate with a parrot who could swear nearly as much as Hawke, so it wasn’t that strange.  

“It’s not so much a where as a who,” Carys began.  

“Ah,” Hawke said knowingly. “We’re on a wolf hunt.” 

Carys stopped and stared at her.  

“What do you know about it?” she asked suspiciously.

Carys was reserving judgment about who and what Hawke really was.  She’d been to Hawke’s funeral.  She’d held Varric when he cried about it.  Hawke wasn’t even a mage, and Carys had held few illusions about what would happen to the woman left behind to fight a tentacled monster the size of an aravel.  Three years ago.

That didn’t necessarily bode poorly for her relationship with whatever was wearing Hawke’s face and using her voice; the spirit of faith who’d absorbed the essence of the Divine had been rather helpful.  But Carys was running especially low on trust, these days, and she’d learned caution towards denizens of the Beyond since she first manifested magic at eight years old. 

“Oh, everyone in the Fade is talking about it,” Hawke said, preening her chest feathers.  “It’s hard to miss the giant, six-eyed wolf rampaging through the place.”

“I’m not sure if that’s who I need to find,” Carys admitted, rubbing her forehead wearily.  “He didn’t give me much in the way of instructions.”

“Men!” Hawke said, fluttering down to the ground and reverting to human form.  “Can’t live with them, too hard to hide their bodies. Tell me all about it.” 

Carys could use the rest. She found a comfortable-looking stone and sat down on it cross-legged.  Hawke followed suit. 

“Do you remember Solas? The mage who was with us when we got trapped in the Fade?” Carys asked her. 

Hawke nodded. “Right.  Bald guy.  You two were banging, right?” 

Carys coughed.  “Not quite.  But in any event, he turned out to be Fen’Harel.”

“It wasn’t really a secret, up here,” Hawke said smugly.

“Yes, turns out quite a lot of people knew.  Except me, I suppose.” 

“So, you’re looking for him? I’ll tell you, he seemed to know his way around.  If he doesn’t want to be found, I don’t think you’ll catch him here,” Hawke advised.

“I know,” Carys sighed. “He’s the one who sent me here, though. He’s planning to tear down the Veil, and it sounds like he doesn’t anticipate a lot of survivors groundside when he does that.  I don’t know if he sent me here just to get me out of the way or…I don’t know.  But he told me that the Fade exists in all times and places, and there was some way to meet a…younger him?  And maybe change his mind.” 

When she said all that to Hawke, it sounded unbelievable. As though she had just been fooled by the man yet again.  But Solas seemed to take some pride in lying only by omission, so if he said “one more chance,” he thought there _was_ a chance.  Carys just had to find it.  

Hawke was frowning. 

“I thought you fixed things,” she said to Carys.  “Closed all the rifts.”

“I did,” Carys said modestly. 

“But the world’s still in danger?  From the Fade?”  Hawke asked. Carys nodded.

“The Veil is artificial. Solas made it to lock away the elven gods.  But he’s having second thoughts, and so…” she trailed off. 

“Fucker,” Hawke said. “How’s Varric, by the way?”

Carys’ head was spun a bit by that segue, but she was honestly surprised it had taken Hawke so long to get around to asking about the people she had left behind.

“Good.  I mean, he misses you, of course.  He’s Viscount of Kirkwall now.  And, um, he wrote another book.  A few, I mean,” Carys supplied.  

Hawke hummed appreciatively, looking away at the Black City on the horizon.

“Did he and that Seeker ever seal the deal?” she asked casually.

Carys laughed before she could stop herself.  “No, no. I guess she would be his type, right? But she still fondles that sword of hers when he talks to her…” she trailed off.  Hawke was staring at her now. 

“His type?” Hawke said, confused.  “Varric likes dwarves.  Blond ones. With big tits.”

“Sure,” Carys said uncomfortably.  “But also tall human brunettes who stab people, right?” 

Hawke was still looking at her.  Carys shifted on her seat.  Shems were always so bad at talking about this kind of thing. 

“You mean me?” Hawke said softly.   

Carys’ brow furrowed. “I thought you knew…?”

Hawke’s face was blank for a few moments, then she shimmered back into bird form and flapped away.

 * * *  

Carys walked for what seemed like several days before Hawke caught up to her again.  

Carys had a feeling that she was headed in the right direction now.  The Black City was very distant and almost unnoticeable on the horizon. Most of the statues and relics were elven.  If Carys could really walk into the past, she was certain this was the way to go.  

“So what’s our plan?” Hawke asked, as though she had not abruptly left and been absent for some time. 

“Our plan?” Carys asked delicately.

“Oh, you know, the Fade is great and everything.  So much to see and do here.  Never any bad weather.  But I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ve been here long enough, and I should go home now.”

“Hmmm,” Carys said, noncommittally.  If Hawke was a demon, this would be the conversation where just a little bit of possession was laid on the table.  “I don’t have the Mark any longer.  I can’t rip through the Veil to the other side.”

“Yes, I noticed that. And didn’t you have two hands back then? And some vallaslin?” Hawke asked, with her usual tact.

“I did,” Carys agreed evenly. 

“So?” Hawke said. “How are _you_ getting out? 

“Solas said that the Fade exists in all times,” Carys decided to tell her.  “If I can find him before he decides to bring down the Veil, it’s possible I can convince him to choose another path.”

“That makes my head hurt,” Hawke complained.  Carys sympathized.  “But I guess your boyfriend can get us both out if we find him?”

“Not my…but certainly you can ask him,” Carys said.

Hawke tilted her bird head to the side.  “Why wouldn’t he let me out too?”

“You know,” Carys said awkwardly.  “You’re a bird now.  In the Fade. And he might think you’re…maybe…a demon?”

Hawke laughed, beak agape. 

“What kind of demon do you think I’d be?” she asked breathlessly.  “Bad interpersonal decisions?  Slovenliness?  Poor timing? Ooh, maybe inappropriate nudity?” 

That didn’t quite answer the question, but at least Hawke wasn’t offended.  Carys was happy for the company, as long as possession wasn’t on the table.  If they found Solas, he could make the call on whether Hawke was safe to let loose on the world (as safe as she’d ever been, at any rate).  If they didn’t find him, then…perhaps Carys would be asking Hawke for flying lessons.  There was a tall, skinny bird with white feathers she had always particularly admired. And since she was a tall, skinny elf with white hair, it would only make sense, wouldn’t it?

“Do you think I’ll still be able to change into a bird when I leave the Fade?” Hawke asked. 

“If Solas brings down the Veil, I guess anything’s possible,” Carys said. 


	3. In Which Lavellan Finds the Void

 

After they walked perhaps another month, Carys asked Hawke how she’d become a bird.  Although they no longer saw artifacts from civilizations other than the Elvhen, Carys was no closer to finding either Solas or a way out of the Fade.

“You remember the Nightmare?” Hawke asked, flitting from outcropping to outcropping. 

“Of course I remember the Nightmare,” Carys said. 

“Well,” said Hawke. “It was giving me a bit of trouble, after the rest of you lot left. It was very big.”

“It was,” said Carys.  Cole had called it the first fear.  It had been the embodiment of her atavistic terror of things that clicked and buzzed and bit.

“So I thought, ‘you’ve really done it now, Hawke.  This thing is going to eat you, and you’ll never get to be a dragon.’” 

“What?” said Carys.

“Oh yes.  I once met a witch who could turn into a dragon, and I had been thinking about it ever since.  It was one of those lingering items on my bucket list, you know?  I got rich, made love to a pirate queen, unleashed an ancient evil upon the entire world….but never figured out the dragon thing.” 

“I see,” Carys said, after a momentary pause.

“So, there I was, dodging tentacles and mandibles and acidic spit- not for the first time, I might add- and I thought, ‘wouldn’t this be easier if you were a dragon?’”

“I suppose it would be,” Carys agreed. 

“So I tried to turn into a dragon.  I hadn’t ever just _tried_ before, and I figured there was no time like the present.”

“And that worked?” Carys asked, wondering whether she would like to be a dragon, or any other kind of creature.  It was becoming a relevant consideration.

“Maker’s balls, of course not.  All I managed was a kind of a misshapen wyvern, and not a very big one at that. Nearly took an antenna to the face.” 

Carys waited politely for the story to continue.

“And then I thought that maybe dragons took more in the way of training, or perhaps preparation. Hawk was my next choice.” 

“Fish eagle,” Carys corrected her.

Hawke made a stabbing motion with one of her talons.  “You don’t need to keep rubbing that in.  A lot of people would think this was a hawk.” 

Carys let that one go. Hawke’s taxonomy was irrelevant for the time being.  

“So, you don’t really know?” Carys clarified. 

“No,” Hawke admitted.  “I pecked out an eye or two then flew off.” 

Carys sighed.  That wasn’t much to go on.  Perhaps a bit more instruction than ‘Your Trainer’ had offered.

“I’m going to give it a try,” she told Hawke. 

Bird seemed the most convenient for scouting the Fade. Turning into an actual hawk would be interpreted as needless taunting, so Carys pictured one of Leliana’s ravens. She’d certainly had plenty of time to observe those.  

“Oh, alright,” Hawke said, not sounding very enthusiastic about it. “You know, being a bird is great and all, but it was really touch and go about turning back into a human for a while, and you can’t beat human for tying laces and opening doors and such.”

“It sounds like the ancient elves did this all the time.  If we can find them, I’m sure we’ll find out more of the real rules behind shapeshifting,” Carys said soothingly. 

“So dragon is still on the table, then?” Hawke asked, perking up a bit. 

Carys shrugged.  “I don’t see why not.”

She stopped where she was and held the image of the raven in her mind. Drawing from the Fade around her, she tried to push her form into that of the raven. 

She opened her eyes.

Nothing had happened.

“You look like you have indigestion.  Have you tried turning into something else yet?”  Hawke asked. 

Carys nodded.  “I was going for raven.  What were you thinking when you first turned into the bird?”

“Oh.  Just…’Maker, it’s going to eat me,’ mostly.” 

“Maybe emotion is part of it,” Carys said. 

Hawke tilted her head.  “Perhaps it's best that you not try too hard.  I’m not even a mage.  I saw a lot of mages go poof when they got really upset.” 

Carys could see that.  Mages were much more vulnerable to corruption than non-mages.  It was possible that Hawke’s resistance to the Fade offered her some degree of protection from it.

“Let me try something slightly different,” Carys said.

She had met mages who were able to project images of themselves to distract and confuse enemies.  Sometimes those images were solid enough to touch.

She looked down at her two arms: the one that remained, and the one that terminated at the elbow.  She closed her eyes and imagined how they had looked when she was whole.  She remembered the Mark, and how its magic had felt within her.  She remembered the pain of gaining it and losing it.

She opened her eyes. 

Her right hand was unchanged.  Her left….the shape of it was the same, but it was green and pulsing it with Fade energy.  It looked like a prosthetic formed of warm, pliant Veil quartz.  

She poked it with her right hand.  Solid enough. 

“Brilliant!”  said Hawke.  "You don't even need to turn back."  

* * * 

The feeling came on slowly. The voices in Carys’ head were usually too disparate in their opinions to register; it was a rarity that any voice in particular would rise to the top of the pack and make his or her opinion known. Her world, her tasks, her choices were too foreign to the dead priests of Mythal who lurked in the corners of her mind.  But now she felt one voice rising within her and telling her that the portion of the Fade they now walked was _familiar_.  

She tried to mentally grab onto that feeling and haul it to the top of her mind, but it slipped through her mental grasp.

“Come on,” she growled. “Be useful for once.  Where are we?”

“I often talk to myself,” Hawke said, apropos of nothing.  “I’m a great conversationalist.” 

Carys did not want to explain her personal category of ‘people who have voices in their heads who are neither crazy nor abominations’ to Hawke (who was a bit touchy on the subject of abominations, typically), so she simply said that the area they were walking through looked promising.

“Oh yes,” Hawke agreed. “Very…elf-y.  Much statue.  Such mural.” 

Carys rolled her eyes. No one’s culture came off looking good in the Fade.  As Solas had once told her, the darker emotions were much more potent than the gentle ones.  Cultural objects inspiring fear and desire were reflected prominently in the Fade; if the ancient elves had hung hammocks in their courtyards and taken relaxing afternoon naps, no trace would be left for subsequent travelers of the Fade to find. 

After taking note of a particular arrangement of stone dragons, Carys carefully cleared her mind of other thoughts, and waited for the voices of the Well to rise again. 

It was never anything so clear as an instruction or a conversation.  The most she’d ever gotten was a sense of knowing- of having learned something so long ago that she could no longer associate it with a particular memory. 

It was hard for her to treat being bound to the will of Mythal as a mistake.  Certainly she did not feel the horror Solas had expressed at the idea that she was now a vessel for the will of the priests of the All-Mother. She was First.  Her needs had always come second to those of her clan. She accepted that she would serve, sacrifice, and live for others.  The special attention of Mythal did not feel like a burden.  Even with Solas’ revelations about the nature of the Evanuris, Carys could not entirely regret the geas.  She’d allowed Solas to remove Falon’Din’s vallaslin as much in repudiation of one Creator for a different one as a rejection of the idea itself. Abelas may not have accepted her, but he had been a man of honor and dignity.  If he did not reject his markings, why would she?  Mythal might have been only an elf.  But even Solas admitted she was the best of them.  

When those feelings were bestowed upon the Sorrows, they whispered a direction to her.  Hawke did not question Carys as she slightly altered their course. She noted the shapes of dragons in stone, marble, and gilt tile. This area of the Fade must be closely associated with Mythal, she thought.   It felt familiar, almost like déjà vu. She knew that she and Solas were not the only ones to have walked the Fade.  Some priest of Mythal had walked this route before.  

Increasingly excited at the idea that she was on something resembling a path, she picked up her pace. She was blind, by now, to the beauty of statues and frescoes, but they were thick in this area.  She could think of little but escaping the swirling green of the sky.  

There was a shift in the quality of the light.  It was getting darker. 

Hawke caught Carys staring up at the sky and nodded, the motion odd on bird’s body.  She had noticed it too.

The light failed the further they traveled.  The surroundings changed, too.  Every area of the Fade that Carys had previously seen was built slightly above the scale of a person- similar to the way that the world seems inconveniently large to a child.  Now it diminished.  The statues were smaller, as were the pillars and rock outcroppings.  It was on Carys’ level.  

“So, have you figured out what you’re going to say?”  Hawke asked her, taking short fluttering leaps to stay abreast of Carys’ stride. She didn’t need to specify to whom. 

“No,” said Carys. “I think I barely know him now.  But he said a few things that make me think he used to be a very different person. So I imagine it will take a while to work out if there’s anything I can learn or change.  I suppose I’ll get to watch the stories of my people as they unfold.”

“The world of the elves,” Hawke pondered.  “You know, I’ve always caught on with elves like a house on fire, but historically elven/human relations have not been the strongest.”

“I am aware of that,” Carys said mildly.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Hawke said, not at all abashed.  “Just saying that I might need to get used to feathers and shitting from great heights if I go with you.”

“Well, you’re welcome to,” Carys told her.  “Since I don’t know how to get you out of the Fade otherwise and back to Varric otherwise.”

Hawke abruptly landed and blurred into human form.

“Uh,” she said.  “Just over that next rise.  It’s not good.”

“Trouble?” Carys said, her pulse picking up.  She thought she could use her magic well enough even without a staff, but she was hardly armed for serious combat.  

“Yes,” said Hawke. “But not demons.”

Hawke’s face was unhappy, but she said no more about it.  Her heart sinking, Carys climbed to the top of the stone hill flanked by a pair of granite archers.

The Fade…ended. Perhaps two hundred yards ahead of her, stone gave way to water.  The water, which was as still as the Well of Sorrows’ pool, stretched forward in all directions, featureless and dark.  The horizon was blank and austere.  The faint green of the sky blurred to blackness in the distance.  

Hawke turned to her. “I could fly over it,” she said dubiously.  “Maybe there’s something else out there?”

Carys stared silently out at the void for a few moments.  

The feelings of purpose sent from within her had not faded.  If anything, they were stronger. 

“No,” she told Hawke. “We go forward.” 

Hawke’s face was skeptical, but she didn’t argue against it.

Carys walked down the hill to the water’s edge.   The shore was just the place where the stone ended and the water began.  There was no beach or weathering to indicate that the water had ever surged or receded. 

“Aren’t you going to take off your clothes?” Hawke asked, looking down at Carys’ leather boots, which extended halfway up her thighs.

Carys was wearing comfortable clothes, not ones necessarily suitable for a long journey. She had on a loose tunic, knit cotton leggings, and a green silk scarf Krem had gifted her on her nameday.  But they seemed none the worse for her long travels. 

“You should be so lucky,” Carys told her with a small smile.

Hawke grinned at her. “Can’t blame a girl for trying, right? But aren’t you afraid of sinking?”

“No,” Carys said. “We’re not really breathing now anyway. And I’m not willing to meet the ancient Elvhen both wet and _naked_.” 

She took the next step into the water.  Then another.  Then she walked forward until her head was below the surface.

She was at once aware of the change in medium and impervious to it.

Just like the ‘water’ in the Well, this water flowed and surrounded her without impeding her. 

And like the water in the Well, this water was fraught with magic.  It pulled and whispered at Carys’ mind, but these whispers felt nothing like people.  She shuddered.  It was too close to the penetrating sibilance of red lyrium.  It was hard to ignore. 

She heard a splash as Hawke jumped in behind her.

She couldn’t have asked the woman to join her, but she was glad she wasn’t alone as they went further into the darkness.  Hawke cuffed her on the shoulder when she drifted down to Carys’ side.  It made the whispers in the water recede somehow. 

Half staggering, half swimming, they made their way forward.  The downward slope of the featureless floor was hard to detect, except that the green light from above grew dimmer as they proceeded.

It was nearly black when Carys saw it.  Or perhaps she felt it.  A voice from the Well said ‘home’ almost so crisply that Carys could distinguish a single speaker. 

It was a little patch of black in darkness.  The arched shape of an eluvian without a frame or ornament.  Just a solid pane of glass.  She would never have found it without the push/pull of the geas within her. She pointed at it, and she could barely see Hawke’s response.  But Carys grabbed the other woman’s arm and propelled them both towards it. 

Carys gripped the edges of it when they reached it. 

There had been no current until they drew near the eluvian.  But touching it now, Carys could feel the pull of the black void beyond the mirror.  She knew, even without the whispers of the Well, that there was nothing past it. Hawke kept a firm grip on Carys’ shoulder as Carys carefully slid one hand from the edge to the flat of the eluvian. 

“Mythal’enaste,” the whisper in her mind said, nearly as clear as though the speaker were standing among them. 

Before Carys could open her mouth to repeat the words, the mirror burst open in a swirl of iridescent magic, and she was falling through. 


	4. In Which Lavellan Meets the Elvhen

The moments after Carys stumbled through the eluvian were full of confusion.  She had to learn how to breathe again.  She was thrust to her knees by the force of the water that swept out with her.  Her eyes had to adjust to the brilliant sunlight pouring through the oculus at the top of the rotunda she emerged in.

And then there were the people.  The first ring was women in rich, shimmering green robes, most of them kneeling. Beyond them, a larger ring of men in golden armor- all of whom drew their bows when Carys made her ungraceful entrance.

She thought the first group were priests. She could feel them conjuring some kind of magic focused on the eluvian behind her.  The second group were so similar in appearance to the Sentinels she’d met at the Temple of Mythal that she almost expected to see Abelas’ face among them. All in the room were elven, and all bore Mythal’s vallaslin in multiple hues and variations. 

Carys had apparently interrupted some kind of ritual.  She could feel gossamer strands of magic pop like soap bubbles as the woman kneeling nearest Carys jerked to her feet in surprise.  She was very tall and muscular compared to the elves of Carys’ time- perhaps even bigger than Solas. Her blond hair was cut short and neat, but her robes were rich with golden embroidery and ornamentation. 

When her pale green eyes met Carys’, a voice inside Carys’ mind shouted in shock and confusion, leading a rising chorus of the Sorrows that nearly blotted out her capacity for thought.  _It’s me, it’s me, it’s me…_

That long, outwardly silent instant, in which Carys was assessed by more than two dozen surprised elvhen, was abruptly shattered by Hawke’s precipitous appearance behind Carys, sending another wave of water through the assembled elves.  Hawke handled her entrance better than Carys, rolling neatly to her feet and coming up with her daggers at the ready. 

Carys opened her mouth to tell her to stand down, but the assembled guards were already alerted and recovered from their first shock.  Whatever they thought of Carys- wet, unexpected, but obviously elven- they knew what to do with heavily armed human interlopers.  Hawke barely blurred into bird form fast enough to avoid the first volley of arrows aimed her way.  She wheeled quickly into the air, and escaped through the oculus as arrows chased after her. 

Carys had done nothing more than stare after it all open-mouthed and paralyzed by the clamor of voices and surge of foreign emotions inside her.  When hands came around her arms and elvhen voices roughly questioned her, Carys decided to employ her much-tested method for meeting new and potentially hostile people in difficult circumstances. 

She looked up into the puzzled green eyes of the lead priestess and passed out.

 * * * 

When Carys woke up, she was pleased to discover that she was uninjured, in possession of all her memories, and not in chains.  That likely marked the high point of all instances of regaining consciousness in unfamiliar surroundings.  

The room she was in was some kind of vestibule, or perhaps someone’s office.  There was a wooden desk against the opposite wall with rolled papers and writing utensils strewn across it.  There was a closed door on Carys’ right, and an open one to her left, through which Carys could see a much larger stone space lit by streams of daylight from unseen higher windows.  Carys was lying on a roll-arm divan upholstered in gleaming brown leather embossed with abstract geometric shapes.  

Carys’ clothes were nearly dry, so she thought she must have been out for some time, perhaps a couple of hours.  When she lifted her head, she startled the dozing form of the eagle perched on some kind of clothes rack in the corner. 

“Hawke!” she said, pushing into a seated position.  “I was worried about you.  They aren’t trying to kill you anymore?”

“Oh, good afternoon,” Hawke said, preening in an obnoxiously casual manner.  “Elven hospitality leaves a lot to be desired, but that tall blond one stopped them from shooting us once I took off in feathers.  I can’t understand a word they’re saying, but I suppose the converse is that they can’t understand us either.”

At the sound of Hawke’s voice, a young man in gold armor leaned into the doorway from where he must have been stationed directly outside. 

“Ah yes, there’s our jailor, Pinky.  Choke on a dick, Pinky!” Hawke yelled at him.  The guard (whose vallaslin _were_ an unfortunate shade of pink, given his crimson hair) grimaced and turned back away from them.

“See?” Hawke said.  “They don’t speak Common.”

“I think he might have gotten the gist of that, Hawke,” Carys whispered, pushing herself up to her feet as she heard the clatter of mailed footsteps approach the room.

Three elves entered the room: the blond priestess from before, and two guards flanking her.  

At her gesture, the guards fell back and assumed positions by the door.  Carys and the woman studied each other. 

The priestess was the tallest elf Carys had ever seen, male or female.  She had broad, muscular shoulders and calloused hands that suggested she spent more time working with her hands than praying with them.  Her skin had that oddly luminescent quality Carys associated with the Sentinels of the Arbor Wilds: an inner light also manifest in her pale eyes and full face of green vallaslin in Mythal’s branching design. It was her features that were the most shocking, and not because they were irregular or different from those Carys might encounter at any alienage or arlathvhen.  It was because some piece of Carys recalled looking into a mirror and seeing those green eyes looking back at her. 

Carys tried not to tense up as the woman returned her appraisal.  

“That mirror is not complete,” the woman said at last.  Not for the first time, Carys thanked the Well for teaching her the tongue of her ancestors. 

“The ritual was expected to take another three months, at a minimum.   And even then, it was supposed to let us travel to the Fade, not the Fade travel to us.  Your…companion’s nature is not easy to define.  But you seem to be a mortal, more or less, if a pretty little broken one. So tell me, little thing, how did you come to walk the Fade?” 

Carys licked her chapped lips. 

“Every door opens in, as well as out,” she began, but her voice cracked.

The priestess frowned.

“I apologize.  It should not be said that a stranger came to the Isenathavhen and was denied refreshment.”

She gave a stern look at one of the guards, who scurried out and quickly returned with a pottery jug and a packet of some kind of flatbread.  Carys didn’t think her stomach was up to solids yet, but she uncorked the jug, sniffed it discretely, and then gratefully drank it down once she determined it held cold, clean water.  

The priestess watched her the entire time.  Carys got the sense that execution was still on the table, but she would be treated well up until the moment she was blasted into her component molecules if she observed the rules of civility.  The Temple of Mythal all over again. 

Once her throat was clear, Carys nodded gratefully at her captors and twined her fingers around the pottery vessel as she spoke. 

“The Fade connects many worlds,” she began.  She’d had a long time to think about this little speech; she didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t think she had anything to gain by telling them at the outset of what became of their world.  She wanted to save her world _and_ Solas, not see him executed at her side before she had a chance to talk with him.  “I am Carys Lavellan, called the Inquisitor and First of my Clan.  I have explored the Fade for some time, seeking to learn from other worlds, as my own is beset by war and Blight.   In my travels, I came across a mirror that led me here.  I don’t mean any harm.” 

Carys continued with an account of her travels through the Fade, edited to remove the critical fact that her world represented the future of this one. 

The woman tilted her head, still assessing her.  “Carys,” she said, her tongue twisting awkwardly around the unfamiliar syllables. “I had wondered if you might be one of Falon’Din’s people, come to spy on us.  Or perhaps Andruil’s, given the hawk,” she said, pointing at Hawke with her chin.

Carys mouth flattened. “I bear no allegiance to any of the gods,” she said.  That was mostly true.  Mythal had claimed her, not the other way around.  “And I’m afraid my friend here is a fish eagle, not a hawk.”

“Ah,” the priestess said, looking at the bird.  “I believe you are right.  Is it a spirit?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Carys confessed.  “One of my companions was lost in the Fade several years ago while battling a large demon. I encountered her again on my journey.  She…wasn’t a bird before.” 

The priestess pursed her lips in contemplation. 

“You are not what we expected, Carys Lavellan, but I believe that you are not here at the behest of my mistress’ wayward family, and that there are others who should speak with you before any further decisions are made.  I am hardly the expert on matters relating to the Fade.” She turned and gazed up at Hawke, who ducked her head under her wing and pretended to doze. 

“There is no need for subterfuge, bird or spirit or…whatever you are.  If you prefer the form of a shemlen, none will attack you.”

Carys translated that for Hawke, who blinked large yellow eyes in ambivalence. 

“Is that your native tongue?” the priestess asked.  “You speak Elvhen strangely.”

“I knew very little of it until I was an adult,” Carys told her.  “Hawke here never learned.” 

The priestess waved an airy hand.  “Perhaps she will pick it up from one of the spirits of knowledge.  It will be interesting to see if the shemlen can learn to speak like People.” 

Carys didn’t translate that. 

“I’ll have a guard show you to a room for the time being.  You’ll hear the bells for meals.  I need to go send some messages to explain…as best I can…why the ritual was interrupted." 

The woman turned to leave as abruptly as she’d entered, but Carys took a chance and reached out to touch the other woman’s wrist.

“Thank you,” she said. “You have been very kind, considering the circumstances.  Can I ask your name?”

The tall elf looked a bit flustered at that.

“Of course,” she said brusquely.  “The All-Mother would have my hide for a bathmat if she found out I’d turned away a seeker after knowledge from some kind of…other world.  And I am Lida.”

“Lida,” Carys repeated. “Thank you.” 

The priestess smiled at her then- an action that made her somewhat austere and bony face a great deal more attractive.  She nodded at them both and left.

The guards looked at Carys expectantly.  Carys looked up at Hawke and sighed.  Her friend was apparently not ready to forgive the Elvhen for the arrows. Searching around the room, Carys found a basin on top of a knit white towel.  She left the basin but took the towel and wrapped it around her green and glowing left arm.  She didn’t know whether it was as vulnerable to avian talons as normal flesh, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way.  Carys held out her left forearm and Hawke flapped down onto it. 

“Oof,” said Carys, knees buckling a bit at the sudden weight.  “You’re heavier than you look.  Good thing I did all that staff work during the campaign.  I’d need you to lay off the salmon, otherwise.”

Hawke flexed her talons through the tea towel in warning, even if she couldn’t have understood the words.  

“You know, the females are even bigger,” the guard told her, gazing down at Hawke in admiration.

“I know,” Carys murmured. “But she doesn’t.” 

 * * *  

Carys was glad that her cover story allowed her to unabashedly gawk like a tourist.  The bones and shapes of the place were familiar to her from her time in the Fade and in elven ruins, but seeing this great building made perfect and polished was a new experience altogether.  The walls were covered with stucco and painted with frescoes of abstract shapes evoking falling water, mountains, forests, and creatures in flight, all in vibrant jewel tones.  She wondered whether Solas had painted any of them. 

Carys was led to a room suitable for housing people, like herself, who blurred the line between “honored guest” and “political prisoner.”  It was high enough off the ground that she didn’t imagine jumping through the window was an option, and there was one door, outside of which the guard showed every intention of lingering. 

Aside from its practicality, however, the room was more beautiful than any habitation Carys had ever seen.  Carys had been born in a tent, but she’d seen the better parts of the Winter Palace and the grand salons of Val Royeaux.  Although this place (something between a fortress and a temple, as best Carys could tell) did not feature the gilded flourishes of Orlesian excess, every stone, every window, every carpet expressed both functionality and beauty. Her windows featured tiny panes of glass fitted together nearly seamlessly to depict scenes of dragons in flight.  The furniture in the room was made of polished whitewood without visible joints; her dresser appeared to have been hewn out of a single massive tree trunk. The room was illuminated by glowing balls of white light humming with magic and set in crystal sconces. 

Carys tossed Hawke in the direction of a stand mirror in one corner, and the bird flapped up to perch on the top of the delicate silvered piece.

“This is very nice,” said Hawke.  “I’ve been in much worse prisons.  Even in Orlais.  Do you think those windows open?”

Carys shook her head. “I don’t think so.  They probably thought about that already.” 

“Hmmph,” said Hawke.  “I suppose we’ll have to rely on our natural charm and cunning to lull them into a sense of trust, then throw them off a cliff.”  

“All of them?” Carys asked dryly.  “I don’t care if they keep us here.  But we need to find Solas.  Or Fen’Harel. Everything I know about these people is based on thousands of years of myths- and according to Solas, most of those myths are totally wrong.  We need to convince them to start talking to us.  Will you try to behave?  They like spirits.  Can you be…” Carys trailed off.  Less inflammatory?  Less human?  Less you?

Before Carys had to express how Hawke needed to repress her instincts with the ancient Elvhen, the door to the chamber opened after a perfunctory tap.  A short, olive-skinned woman with dusty-blond hair in a long braid down her back pushed in a wheeled cart.  

She pulled a few stacks of what looked like clothing from her cart and started storing them in the dresser.  After a few efficient movements, she looked at Carys’ feet and murmured that she would be pleased to take Carys’ clothing to be washed. 

“Thank you,” Carys said, grabbing something at random from the dresser.  “Are there baths here?” 

The woman tonelessly reported that the baths were down the hall, and she would be pleased to show Carys where they were. 

When Hawke jumped off of the mirror, reverted to human form, and began to strip to her skin, the woman gave the merest flinch of surprise, but recovered quickly.  She noted that she would be pleased to bring in an additional bed for Hawke.  She would be pleased to assist with whatever Carys needed for the duration of the stay. 

“Um,” Carys said, wondering why the woman had to be pleased at everything she was doing.   “What do I call you?  If I need any other help?”

That did get a flicker of emotion from her.  Carys just wasn’t sure which one.  It could have been fear.  Or surprise. Possibly anger.

“You can call a slave whatever you wish,” she said flatly.  “I am called Braid, usually.”

It hit Carys like a punch in the gut.  This beautiful place, in Mythal’s probable sanctum, full of friendly (or at least non-hostile) elves, had slaves.  This woman, who wore the same vallaslin Carys’ Keeper did, was a slave.  Some irrational part of her heart had hoped that Solas was wrong. She should have known better.  She would need to guard herself in this deceptively lovely world; Solas had not turned on his family and blocked access to his beloved Fade for nothing. 

She shook her head in dismay.  If anything, she needed to search out the rot in this place, not the beauty.  Solas longed for the world he’d left behind; she needed evidence to show him why his sacrifice had been worthwhile. 

“What is it?” Hawke asked her.  The woman was stripped to her smallclothes, armor discarded in a reckless pile on the floor. 

“She’s a slave,” Carys told her softly. 

“Oh,” said Hawke.  She frowned and turned to Braid. 

“Do you want us to break you out?” she said, jerking her chin at Carys to translate.

Hawke was naked- save for a tattered pair of undergarments and an impressive collection of scars- and she was utterly serious about commencing battle, unarmed, against whatever the Elvhen nation had to throw against her.   So that she could liberate a slave she’d just met.  Carys suppressed a sigh.  Hawke was going to be trouble. 

“Hawke,” she said.  “We are not here to fix this.  Solas fixes this.  We are here to find Solas and fix _him_.” 

Braid was watching them with slightly narrowed eyes. 

“I will lead you to the baths,” she said with an air of remove.  “I would be pleased to assist you both with…not looking like that.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Wait a minute!' you say. 'I read this because it is supposed to be about Young Solas. We're four chapters in and where's the wolf?'
> 
> Um, maybe next chapter? We'll see how this goes.


	5. In Which Hawke Goes Hunting

After the baths (larger than the Intrinsic Pool, magically-heated, and smelling faintly of verbena), they both donned the nondescript linen tunics and knit wool leggings provided for them.  Carys’ clothing fit well.  Hawke’s stretched obscenely across her chest and hips.  

“The elves are going to worship me like a primeval fertility goddess,” Hawke declared, looking at her breasts in the mirror.  “I’d better go down for dinner in feathers.  I can’t join the conversation, in any event.” 

While they bathed, Braid retrieved a proper falconry gauntlet, which Carys donned, and a leather hood and jesses, which Hawke belly-laughed at. 

“You’re going to have to buy me a few drinks, at a minimum, before you put a blindfold and leash on me,” she told Carys.  Carys rolled her eyes, and picked Hawke up after she shrank down to her form as an eagle. 

“You need to start trying to learn Elvhen,” Carys said.  “I can’t be carrying you everywhere I go.  And if you want to be helpful, you could do some listening.  I doubt people will tell me anything useful to my face.” 

Braid showed Hawke and Carys down to a large hall where several dozen priests and Sentinels dined family-style at long wooden tables.  Lida turned and waved at them as they entered.  Carys sat down in a padded armchair with a wooden back carved to look like twining branches.  Hawke perched there.  

“Do you want me to get you some raw rabbit legs or something?” Carys whispered to her. 

Hawke pretended to gag. “I don’t think so.  Cooked, I think.” 

Lida watched them curiously. 

“I have known those born in the Fade to prefer the shape of a creature, but never one born in the waking world,” she said, pulling a basket of flatbreads to them, and then a platter of skewers of meat. 

A server came from behind them and left several small bowls of colorful sauces and an empty goblet. Carys watched the other diners out of the corner of her eye.  Their manners seemed fairly relaxed.  Carys handed back one of the meat skewers to Hawke, who delicately grasped it with one foot while tearing chunks off with her beak.  Another server returned with a large flagon of wine and filled Carys’ goblet. 

It was good- no better than what she’d been offered at the Winter Palace, perhaps- but good.  

The elf across the table from her made a face as he watched her drink.  He wore his dark brown hair in small knots across his scalp, each crowned with a gold bead. 

“First time in Elvhenan, and you land here, of all places.  What you must think of us.” 

“Pardon?” Carys asked, not understanding the thrust of his statement. 

“Istannis was not made for the rustic life,” Lida said, with a note of contempt in her voice. “Perhaps if he did not brag so about the delicate and subtle nature of his magic, he would not have been assigned to this project and could be drinking ice wine in Arlathan instead.” Which would be better for everyone, her tone suggested. 

Istannis’s copper skin flushed. 

“It is a temporary assignment,” he said stiffly.  “Which I was fortunate to be given by our Lady, of course. I would bear any sacrifice for her greater glory.”  His voice had the sing-song note of recital. 

Lida gazed around her. This meal did not seem very rustic to her.  There were more than a dozen servers- slaves, she supposed- moving about the room setting and removing dishes, filling goblets, and replacing bowls of food.  She took her own skewer of meat and dipped it at random into a bowl of green sauce before taking a tentative bite.

The meat, which she tentatively identified as lamb, was delicately spiced and tasted of sweet fruitwood smoke.  The sauce was tangy, consisting of some kind of yogurt base blended with basil and an herb she could not identify.  Josephine would not have been embarrassed to serve it at a state dinner in Skyhold. It was certainly better than anything Carys had eaten until she was a grown woman. 

“I am honored by the hospitality shown me,” she said slowly.  “I can see you have offered me the best of what you have, and treated me as well as the highest among you. “ 

Josephine and Leliana had initially despaired of Carys’ ability to conduct diplomacy, as blunt as she was at the outset of their mission.  But Carys had simply absorbed the rules of Fereldan society, and then the Orlesian, and governed herself accordingly.  The Dalish prized honestly.  The Orlesians disdained it.  Halamshiral had knelt at her feet.  She was tiptoeing through this new world blindfolded, but she made an educated guess based on Solas’ opaque comments.  It was apparently the right one. 

Both Lida and Istannis relaxed.  She’d chosen correctly.  She humbled neither herself, nor them. 

“We will travel to the Sun’s Rest tomorrow,” Lida said, more casually.  “I received a message back already, and our Lady is eager to meet you and determine what brought you through her mirror.”  

The Sorrows were pleased to hear that.  They wanted to explain everything to Mythal and embrace her orders.  Carys wondered whether she was going to have any problems with them.    

“You were attempting to open a permanent portal to the Fade?” Carys asked, mildly curious. Hawke slapped her in the back of the head with her primary feathers, and Carys dutifully handed back another meat skewer.

“Yes,” said Lida.  “We have heard rumors that such a thing has already been achieved, and your arrival would seem to confirm it.  Is it common to do so, in your world?”

“Not common, no,” Carys responded.  “It takes a great deal of power, and the Fade is dangerous.  But this most recent trip was my third and longest.  I lost Hawke there on my first trip.”  

“Ah,” Istannis said, eyes narrowing on the bird behind Carys.  “You have spent a great deal of time in the Fade, then?  We learn what we can from spirits, of course, but a mortal perspective will be useful in making plans.” 

Carys thought she would be pushing the limits of hospitality to inquire what plans those might be, and decided to remain silent for the time being.  She had but the roughest outline of major events in Elvhenan before and after Mythal’s murder, and she had thus far only located herself in the “before” camp, which left thousands of years to account for.  For all she knew, Solas had not even been born yet.  That was a grim thought, not least because she had a vague understanding that Solas had not had parents in the traditional sense. 

Hawke slapped her again in the back of the head to bring Carys’ attention to a large sponge cake decorated with fresh berries and spun sugar.

“No,” said Carys. “That can’t be good for you.  If you want cake, you can choose to look like a person.”  Hawke’s feathers quivered in displeasure, but she closed her eyes and pretended to ignore Carys.  

Lida tossed her napkin over her cleared plate.

“We will travel tomorrow morning to the Sun’s Rest.  Can you ride?” she asked Carys.

“A horse?” Carys asked. 

Lida looked puzzled. “A what?  No, halla.”

“Oh, of course,” Carys blushed.  “Yes, I can. I don’t think Hawke can, but she’ll fly. Is there no eluvian where we’re going?”

Lida smiled.  “Yes, there is, but not one here to reach it. This is one of the All-Mother’s retreats.  It would hardly serve as such if anyone could drop in through the Crossroads.  That is why Istannis must suffer for lack of his usual comforts.  We are limited to what we can buy in the area.”

“I am perfectly content here,” Istannis said stiffly. 

Lida gave him a knowing look.  “Of course. And you’ll be even more content at the end of our journey.”

 * * * 

The next morning, Carys was escorted down to a large courtyard where perhaps a dozen halla had been bridled for riding and four more were hitched to a covered coach laden with supplies.  Hawke, who was perched on Lida’s wrist, looked at them skeptically. 

“I suppose I can perch on the horns?” she said.

Carys glared at her. “Don’t you dare,” she said. “We’ll hardly be traveling quickly with that wagon.  You can either ride inside or just keep up.”  Hawke groaned dramatically. 

Carys tossed her into the air and Hawke flapped up to the roof overhanging the cobblestoned courtyard. Carys eyed the halla with trepidation. She hadn’t ridden a halla since she was a teenager.  These were much larger than the ones her clan had raised, large enough to support an elf in full armor, rather than just children and the infirm.

Still, when a groom gestured at one cream-colored doe, Carys offered her palm, murmured the traditional words of greeting, and then vaulted onto the halla’s bare back adroitly enough. She wrapped her legs around the soft flanks of her mount, and ran her fingers soothingly across her back. 

“Interesting,” said Lida, already mounted and coming alongside of Carys.  “Ghilan’nain created the halla but three generations ago.  I wonder that your world should have them as well.”

Carys froze, thinking of how to explain her familiarity with so much of Elvhenan.  “It is easiest, I think, to touch the worlds closest to our own. I should not be surprised to find we have much in common,” she said.

The groom returned with a small falconry perch, which he buckled across Carys’ knees despite her attempts to demur. 

“My friend is much larger than your hunting birds,” she tried to protest, but Lida insisted. 

Carys sensed that Hawke was much more intriguing to these Elvhen than she was.  Figures, she thought.  Most of the Inquisition had felt the same way.   If a bird could look smug, Hawke did when she fluttered down to Carys’ lap.  The halla craned her head back to give Hawke a look of bovine disgust, which Carys mentally seconded.  

“You’re going to learn Elvhen and act like a person again when we get to wherever we’re going,” Carys whispered.  

“We’ll see about that,” Hawke retorted.  “You’re the one who wanted to come play with the fancy elves.  I just want to get back to my favorite dwarf.” 

Carys got her first look at the landscape when the party departed through a small portcullis. This place was obviously built with defense in mind; there were several walls and gates between the courtyard and the narrow road.  She tried not to be obvious about looking around, but she saw even more guards and Sentinels watching them from the battlements and towers.  What was so valuable about the fortress?  Not an unfinished eluvian, surely.  Carys wondered if its importance had contributed to the speed at which she and Hawke had been escorted from the place.  

They were in a large shallow valley thickly forested with pine and hazel.  The distant hills looked like granite where Carys could see them through the thick morning fog.  Their group moved out double-file down the path.  Lida was apparently in charge, and Carys recognized Istannis and a couple of the other priests from the night before.  Lida was not wearing her robes, however; she’d changed into gleaming silver-scale armor with large, ornate steel boots and pauldrons.  She seemed much more at ease in the metal than she had in robes.  The remainder of their group were warriors. They weren’t Sentinels, or at least they did not wear the golden armor Carys associated with them, but they were dressed in dull silver and leather armor, and carried short bows and paired daggers. 

Their pace was quick, but not punishing.  Lida turned her head and told them that they would have to make camp for one night and then reach their destination the next day.  The sun burned off the haze as it rose, and soon the hills gave way to lightly forested plains and farmland.  Carys observed the small cottages and farms with interest; there were few elves living outside clans or alienages in her time, and she was glad for the opportunity to see how her people had lived when they’d ruled the world.  For the most part, their clothing and houses would not have been far outside the norm for the Dales.  The cottages were white-washed brick with thatched roofs, and the farmers wore simple clothing of linen and wool as they weeded in their fields. It was early summer, Carys thought. None of the farmers drew close as they passed, but Carys could see that none bore vallaslin.  The agricultural class was free, then. 

The well-kept fields and orchards mixed with virgin woods, but none of it looked unusual.  The warriors nonetheless rode silently and alertly. Carys wondered what they were worried about, and why Mythal’s fortress was so heavily fortified.  The farms showed no evidence of war; certainly nothing like Carys had seen in Orlais.

When the sun began to dip towards the treetops, Lida gestured at a large stand of hazel trees and remarked that it looked like favorable grouse habitat.  It would be pleasant to have fresh meat at dinner, she suggested. 

Several other riders looked hopefully in Carys’ direction. 

“Uh,” said Carys. “I’m out of practice with a bow, these days, but if someone will come beat those trees with me, I’ll do my best….” 

Lida snorted with laughter, and a few of the warriors scoffed openly.  

“I am sure our warriors could handle that, but the kind of arrows we carry would ruin a bird of that size,” Lida finally explained.  “I thought perhaps your companion might oblige us.” 

Then it was Carys’ turn to laugh, and she poked Hawke where she was drowsing on her perch.

“You hear that, Hawke?” Carys told her.  “Time to get out there and earn your dinner.”

“What?” Hawke said, shaking herself awake and narrowing her golden eyes at Carys. 

“They said there’s grouse in those trees.  I believe they expect you to catch them for us,” Carys said, doing her best to suppress her deep inner satisfaction at the idea.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Hawke sneered, swiveling her head to look into the forest. 

Then she noticed a dozen elves watching her expectantly. 

She hunched her wings and sighed. 

 * * * 

Roast grouse was delicious, Carys thought.  And watching Hawke stoop after the fat things while screaming _fuck you birds_ as a war cry was the best appetizer she’d ever had. 

Hawke was gracious in victory and warmed her human hands before the fire.  She still winced when visitors approached her to slap her on the shoulder and complement her hunting, but she was polite enough, even offering up a proper “ma serannas” to a young woman who brought her a collection of the tail feathers as a trophy. 

She caught Carys’ approving glance and scowled. 

“You’ve made your point. I’ll play nice,” she said.  

“I never had any doubt,” Carys said serenely.  

The cart turned out to hold a number of large tents and bedrolls.  Carys and Hawke elected to sleep in the open, given the mildness of the evening.  Carys watched sparks pop off the dwindling fire and felt at ease for the first time in a long while.  It was almost like an evening during the campaign against Corypheus.  Blackwall had sung a ballad under his breath while oiling his armor, Cole had pointed out sleeping creatures in the trees around them, and Solas had drawn a little picture of her in his journal.  Carys had felt so needed, and so perfectly fitted to the need of the moment, that she had fallen asleep content for the first time since leaving her clan.  There had been disasters before and after that night, but Carys treasured the memory of that quiet moment as a promise of what she could feel- would feel again- if she could only succeed at her task. 

 * * * 

Carys did not sleep long before she woke with Hawke’s hand clamped over her mouth.  That didn’t necessarily mean trouble, but the human woman’s vicious grin did.  When Carys blinked at her, Hawke removed her hand and pressed a finger to her own lips. 

Hawke’s daggers were out and gleaming in the firelight.  

“I thought they took your weapons,” Carys whispered.  

“They did,” Hawke responded. “I took them back.” 

Carys turned her head and saw the other members of their party arming themselves quietly.  She reached out with her magical senses. There were multiple kinds of wards laid around the camp, some of which she recognized from her travels with Solas. Carys did not consider herself especially adept with magic.  She was a blunt instrument where Solas, Vivienne, and even Dorian were scalpels. But even she could feel that the careful threads of magic laid in a web through the nearby forest had been disturbed. Someone was coming. 

As she rolled to her feet, the camp erupted in a clamor of war cries, bolts of energy, and flashing of shields. 

It was too dark for any of the warriors to use bows, but every elf she saw had his or her own shields glowing blue.  The tales were true; every elf was a mage in this world.  Lida was nearly incandescent with magic.  Her skin glowed and crackled with white energy, and a trail of sparks followed her about the battlefield as she spun and weaved, wielding a blade of pure green Fade energy.  She was one of the arcane warriors of legend. 

Carys wasn’t sure whether she was expected to join the combat, but Hawke showed no such discretion. The attackers were a near dozen elves in armor so black it seemed to absorb what little light was cast by the ricocheting spells and dying fires.  Hawke rolled adroitly behind one and caught her by the throat before sliding her dagger into a gap in the attacker’s armor. 

Carys spun around to determine whether the number of attackers would justify her participation in the battle, and spied three together just outside of the radius of the fire with their hands joined in ritual.  A blade flashed as one drew it over his bared forearm. 

Blood magic.  That was never a good sign.  Reacting on instinct, Carys seized Fade magic and cast it out through her reconstituted left hand at the three blood mages in a veilstrike. 

She forgot to take into account the absence of a Veil. 

Fade energy rippled forth through her arm in a tsunami of glowing green light and struck down the three blood mages- along with a fair portion of the forest behind them.  Carys was tossed backwards by the same force and fell on her rear in the dirt. 

The crackling thunder of dozens of trees falling in a wave beyond Carys brought the fight to a momentary halt, long enough for Lida and the warriors to bring down the remaining enemies. 

Some of the trees around the large gap through the woods that Carys had created were on fire.   Carys pulled her lips into a flat line.  She hoped her little display didn’t get them in trouble. 

Hawke dragged her opponent’s body behind her as she came up next to Carys. 

“Show-off!” she said cheerfully.  She pointed down to the dead elf’s body.  “Who’d I kill?”

Carys knelt to examine the body.  The woman had ordinary elven features, but her vallaslin were written in blood-red ink in an unfamiliar pattern.  Carys looked back for Lida and pointed down at the dead elf with an expression of confusion. 

Lida approached the two of them and frowned at Hawke’s fallen opponent.  

“The Enemies,” she said with disgust.  “Geldauran’s, this time.”  She spat on the ground.  “It is not good that they ranged so close to the Dragon’s Heart.  This was done just to taunt us with their ability to come here without detection.” 

Istannis approached as well, but he was focused on the wreckage Carys’ spell had created, not the dead elves.  He raised a hand and sent a waft of frost out to douse the flames in the trees.  Several other elves from their party drifted up behind him to gaze upon the destruction. 

“Uh, ir abelas,” Carys mumbled.  “I got carried away.”  

Hawke laughed, even though she couldn’t have understood the words. 

“Well, it seems you don’t need looking after,” Lida finally said.  “Perhaps a lesson on subtlety, but no protection along the way.”  But her gaze was more serious than her words, and Carys worried that she’d made herself into more than a curiosity- perhaps into a threat. 


	6. In Which Lavellan Attends a Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: "this fic is mostly about young Solas."
> 
> Narrator's Voice: "this fic is mostly about Elvhen architecture and interior decor with particular attention paid to how it reflects the rise of mercantilism in Mythal's domain."

 

Lida burned only the armor and weapons.  The attackers- the Enemy, to her turn of phrase- were stripped and dragged into the woods to be left for scavengers.  Her face was implacable as she gave the orders.

Although it was the middle of the night, there was no discussion of resting again.  Lida supervised the packing of the camp, and their entire party was soon ready to walk on to their destination despite the darkness.  The halla were jumpy and uneasy to be leaving before dawn, but Istannis brought his hands together and then cast out an armful of lights that hung above them like tiny yellow stars.  They gave off enough light to make their footing sure, but not so much that their eyes could not pierce the shadows in the trees by the road. 

They walked the halla for the remainder of their journey.  The dirt track they followed widened only slightly as they approached a large walled town surrounded by well-kept fields and orchards.  The outer walls and the towers Carys saw beyond were constructed of the same blue granite forming the hills they had passed on their march. 

The city gates were open as their party approached, but flanked by a company of guards bearing Mythal’s vallaslin.  They bowed to Lida at the waist as she approached, then made a complicated gesture of genuflection to the statue of Mythal carved above the entrance.  

Lida barely acknowledged them as she stomped into the city.  Inside the walls, Carys got her first look at an Elvhen town.  It looked like it held perhaps a few thousand people within its bounds.  The area nearest the gate appeared to be a market district.  Wooden warehouses had large open bays through which Carys spied bundles of cloth, bushels of grain, and stacked crates. 

The streets were clean and paved with the same blue stone that the walls and larger buildings were constructed of.  Elves walked the streets calmly in clothing slightly more colorful and ornate than that of the farmers she’d wearing outside the town.  Slightly more than half were bare-faced.  The elves in vallaslin could not be classified as a whole- many of the elves she saw loading crates and accomplishing other manual tasks were slaves, obviously, but so were the guards.  And Mythal’s priests and Sentinels.  Solas’ stories about the plight of Elvhenan’s slaves couldn’t be squared exactly with what it meant to wear vallaslin, or the lives of those who served Mythal.  What did slave mean here, she wondered.  At least in Mythal’s demesne, it seemed to mean something different than slave meant in Tevinter. 

She also spied some kind of spirit in the middle of the square.  Its form was vaguely humanoid, but partially transparent.  The visible parts seemed to be made of overlapping strips of polished wood and grey metal in a lattice that suggested strength and flexibility both.  It appeared to be directing a handful of workers who were loading a halla-drawn cart by using their magic to place fragile wooden boxes in a precise stack, then tying them down with cord.

A warrior noticed Carys staring at it, and whispered, “A spirit of purpose.  Since it arrived in this town three years ago, it has prospered greatly.  Mythal’s coffers have been much increased by its labors.”  

Lida’s pace did not let up as she marched them towards the center of town.  As best Carys could tell, the streets were laid out like a spider’s web, and they walked down one of the spokes directly to the center.  The wood and granite buildings gave way to a large green space or park, where trees nearly as tall as the largest buildings shaded a square with a number of fountains and statues mixed with careful plantings of blooming flowers and shrubs.

Better-dressed elves were enjoying the sunny morning on benches and tables dotting the area, playing board games, reading, and chatting in small groups.  A few were shadowed by silent figures in vallaslin, who carried parcels or maintained spells of silence or cooling on their masters. Carys followed the line of Hawke’s gaze to the slaves and silently begged her not to say anything. 

Lida approached the dead center of the park, where a small marble building with large ornate doors marked the convergence of all paths.  A guard stepped forward and hailed their party, then hurried to throw open the doors at Lida’s curt gesture.

They all walked inside together.  The interior of the small building was decorated with golden murals of the Evanuris, one per wall- although Carys did not see one of the Wolf.  The room was dominated by a large eluvian.  Lida waved her hand at it, and it bloomed with light. 

“The Sun’s Rest,” Lida commanded, and the eluvian shimmered into a curtain of fire.  The members of their party fearlessly stepped through it, two by two abreast, until only Hawke, Lida, and Carys remained.

 “After you,” Lida said, not unkindly. 

“Where are we going?” Carys ventured to ask.

“A retreat of Elgar’nan’s, along the western coast,” Lida explained.  “The Evanuris are still celebrating the reconciliation of Elgar’nan and Falon’Din, but as I expect that to continue for some time yet, we will seek an audience with our Lady there.” 

Carys nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped up to the eluvian, tugging Hawke in her wake.  Hawke remained in her human form, but had drawn no concern as they walked through the town.  Carys supposed that when spirits of purpose could organize warehouse shipping concerns, a person with a blood-red scar across her face and robes incorporating the skins of several dangerous creatures might appear to be only a different kind of spirit.  It was not even out of question that Hawke _was_ a spirit.  

“Put your hood up,” Carys whispered to Hawke.  Elgar’nan was no friend to either Fen’Harel or Mythal, as best she understood the true history of Elvhenan.  She hoped they might draw little attention from the other Evanuris while searching for Solas.  Hawke nodded and pulled up her grey leather cowl, concealing her ears at the least. 

Together they stepped into the flames.

The chamber on the other side of the mirror nearly mirrored the one they came from.  Golden murals of the Evanuris still covered the walls. The elves they had traveled with were still assembled on the other side.  No windows, however, gave any clue as to the outside environment.  There was one large doorway leading out of the eluvian chamber, and two elves in golden armor similar to that worn by the Sentinels flanked it.  There were subtle differences in the ornamentation of their armor, but the largest one the color of the silk hoods they wore over their shaven heads. Mythal’s had worn grey; these wore hoods of vibrant yellow.  They nodded respectfully to Lida, but did not bow.

“The Keeper of Isenatha’vhen seeks audience with her Lady,” Lida announced.  “Please convey us to her quarters.” 

One of the guards opened the door and called to a young woman lurking outside, her face adorned in Elgar’nan’s vallaslin. 

After a curt word from the doorkeeper, the entire group set out after her.  

The shapes of the halls in this place were similar to those in the Dragon’s Heart, but the materials were different.  The floor and walls were constructed of polished slabs of black basalt.  There was less wood; it was used mostly for doors and decorative accents.  The air felt warmer and smelled of rain.  Everywhere small potted plants and trees burst into tropical bloom.  As they passed a hall with large windows running along one side, Carys could see that it was either early or late in the day.  The scene beyond was jagged black cliffs, and a sky where seabirds flew. 

The bulk of their group were directed outside via another large doorway.  Their guide told them to join Mythal’s other retainers in the “Hart’s Pavilion,” which some, at least, seemed familiar with.  Only Lida and Istannis waited with Carys and Hawke.

Their guide then turned and led them back into the large complex they had emerged from. 

Carys tried to estimate the size of the place based upon the number of hallways they had traversed thus far, and decided that the building had to be larger than the Winter Palace. They went up two flights of stairs and emerged in a hallway dominated by golden statues of dragons in repose. Lida nodded farewell to the young woman who had accompanied them, and opened a large, ornate door without knocking.

Istannis held them back where Carys would have followed her.  

“Where are we,” Hawke whispered to Carys.  Carys shrugged her shoulders and looked pleadingly at Istannis for information.  

Istannis took Hawke’s meaning and gave her a flat smile. 

“Mythal’s chambers. Lida considers you two important enough to run us all out of the Dragon’s Heart and approach our Lady herself. We shall see.”

The three of them waited there in the corridor for several more minutes.  Carys resisted the urge to fidget, taking measured breaths and trying to appreciate the beauty of the place.  If she ever got home, she knew her Keeper would expect a detailed report of every last tile.  She wondered if she were about to meet Mythal again, and wished she’d had a little more sleep, a change of clothing, and perhaps a better idea of what she was doing. 

Hawke was digging the toes of her metal boots into the thick rug they stood on.  Like much of the decoration, it was woven in shades of yellow and orange, here in a pattern that suggested dancing flames. 

After another few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Lida emerged from the room, followed by a shorter man whose brown hair was cropped close to this scalp.  

The man wore long, split robes of grey silk embroidered with gold and Mythal’s vallaslin across his entire face in thick black lines.  Lida paused a few paces away from Carys while the grey-robed man approached closer to her than she would ordinarily be comfortable with. 

They were of a height, and Carys looked steadily into his dark brown eyes as he examined her.  His features were ascetic to the extreme, even for an elf.  Carys opened herself to the voices of the Sorrows, and searched for his face within.  Unusually, the chorus that emerged was full of controversy. 

 _Eolas_ , the Sorrows identified him.  _The High Priest of Mythal_ , several called him.  _Master_ , said many.  And _traitor_ , said a few. 

His own voice was not among them. However Eolas was to end his life, it was not kneeling in the Vir’abelasan. 

Carys froze under the conflicting tide of voices. 

Eolas took advantage of her stillness to lift one narrow hand and place his fingertips lightly on her forehead.   Carys shivered and jerked her head back as his magic and dark eyes bored into her.  

She took a quick half-step backwards, and Hawke’s hands floated up towards her daggers.  Eolas turned his head slightly to appraise Hawke, and gave her an unconcerned blink.

“Interesting,” he said at length.  His head tilted back towards Carys.  “I cannot make sense of the shape of your mind.  You are like a dry riverbed through which the flood waters pass. That magic is not your own, is it?”

Carys remained silent, unsure of how much he could see. 

“And you smell of the Fade,” he said, now addressing Hawke.  “I wonder what you began as.” 

Carys bit her lip. Was that confirmation that Hawke was not what was left of the human woman who fell into the rift at Adamant?

“It doesn’t understand Elvhen,” Istannis said, breaking into the conversation, and gesturing towards Hawke. “I thought Knowledge might teach it, and then we could examine it to determine whether the shemlen have truly learned the art of taking other forms, or if it is instead one of the People or a spirit choosing a strange form.” 

Lida glared at Istannis. Carys smoothed her face before she could do the same. 

“The All-Mother should be the judge of that.  She knows best what the eluvian was designed to achieve.  Who are we to know if this is not expected?”  Lida said brusquely.

Eolas clasped his hands before him and turned back to Lida. 

“The All-Mother would not thank me for interrupting the rites of reconciliation simply to bring her news of the failure at the Isenatha’vhen,” he told Lida smoothly. “And you should thank me for not doing so as well.”  

Lida appeared to choke back a sputter.   “What should I do with them, then?” she asked, a plaintive note in her voice. 

Eolas was already turning to go back into the room.  “I cannot imagine either will pose a problem to so many Evanuris on such a tense footing,” he said, an ironic note in his voice.  “Turn them loose to await our Lady’s convenience.”

Lida stared after his retreating back as he steadily walked away. 

“What did he say?” Hawke whispered to Lida.

“That we couldn’t possibly cause problems,” Carys whispered back.

Hawke slowly grinned. “Well.  That just makes me want to turn up drunk, rowdy, and pregnant to prove him wrong, doesn’t it.” 

* * *  

After a whispered conference conducted just out of earshot (both Lida and Istannis waving their arms and pointing angrily at each other), Lida stiffly escorted Carys and Hawke back through the complex in the same direction they had seen the rest of their party travel. 

They traveled through a small courtyard where tropical flowers perfumed a heated pool sunk low in the ground.  A couple of naked elves were relaxing therein, and turned their heads languidly to watch them as they passed.  

After reentering another doorway, Carys noted that the decorations of the hallways had subtly changed, and reflected Mythal’s favored motifs of stars and dragons.  Lida rousted a blinking woman in vallaslin from a chamber near the entrance, and instructed her to find “appropriate” lodgings for Carys and Hawke.  Lida and Istannis then made a hasty retreat, apparently washing their hands of them both. 

The small woman they were left with stared at them uncomfortably, no doubt trying to figure out what was meant by “appropriate” housing.  She smelled like stale alcohol, and Carys got the sense she’d been sleeping off a hangover before Lida dropped the interlopers in her lap.

“Tell her we’re really important,” Hawke whispered. 

Carys shrugged. “Alright,” she agreed.

Carys asked the small woman (some kind of chatelaine for Mythal’s quarters) for the largest rooms currently unoccupied.  The woman bit her lower lip and nodded, then led Carys and Hawke through a dizzying number of twists and turns of the halls to a set of rooms where large windows overlooked a grey and churning ocean hundreds of feet below steep black cliffs. Arched doorways led off to rooms for sitting and sleeping, and a private bathing chamber.  The floor had a mosaic of a great dragon in flight; Carys recognized a Highland Ravager. 

“This will do,” Hawke said, a suppressed note of glee in her voice.  She efficiently raided a large display of fresh fruit and cheese on a sideboard, popped off her boots, and sank onto an upholstered chaise lounge to feed herself a bunch of grapes.  Carys dismissed the chatelaine with a nod and dizzily walked into the nearest bedroom. She barely had time to remove her boots before she collapsed, face first, into the soft feather duvet. 

She slept then, and dreamed of dragons.

 * * * 

When Carys awoke, moist evening breezes were tugging at her hair.  She smelled fairly disgusting, but felt as good as she had in years.  She rolled over and stared up at the ornate painted ceiling.  She wondered how she would begin looking for Solas.  If he wasn’t counted among the Evanuris yet, there was no telling where he was, or if he was even born yet.  She wondered if she had a time limit to find him; was her world moving on at its normal pace, or could she return to the same moment she left? Would Solas wait for her?  How long?

Finding no answers in the paint on the walls, Carys padded out of her chamber and looked for Hawke. The windows were open, and Hawke was seated on the sill, legs dangling over the edge. 

“If someone startled you, do you think you could change before you hit the ground?” Carys asked from across the room.  

Hawke turned and grinned at her.  “Let’s not test it, shall we?” 

Carys came to stand next to her and gaze out at the sea.  The night was cloudy and dark, and she could barely see the whitecaps below. When she leaned out a bit, she could hear distant music and voices on the wind.  

“Sounds like there’s quite a party going on out there,” Hawke said with a smile.  “I’m going to check it out.” 

“Like that?” Carys asked skeptically.  Hawke hadn’t changed out of her armor, and she didn’t look or smell any better than Carys did.

“No, as bird.  I’m going to keep an eye out for one of those spirits they mentioned.  Maybe pick up a few things.  See what they’re doing, at least.  I was always good at being sneaky.” 

Carys had her doubts about that, since the tall Fereldan woman with the scar on her prominent nose had always been the center of attention in every room, but she supposed that as a bird, Hawke might be less noticeable. 

She wished Hawke luck and locked the window into its open position as Hawke took flight out and over the cliffs.  At a loss for what to do with herself, Carys decided that she might as well take advantage of the quarters she was currently occupying (she half-figured that someone would come and evict her soon when it was discovered that she was nothing more than Lida’s oddity) and went to draw herself a bath. 

After a luxurious soak with a number of oils and unguents made from what she figured to be extinct flowers, she wrapped herself in a towel and went hunting for clothes.  Her own were worn and smelled strongly of halla and woodsmoke.  While these smells represented her childhood, she was aware that non-Dalish did not find those scents quite as nostalgic as she did.  

While most of the dressers and closets in the place were empty, she found a chest full of robes packed in cedar and wax paper.  She pulled them out and examined the most promising on her bed. 

The cuts and materials were strange.  She bit her lip, worried that she might inadvertently choose one designed exclusively for men, or priests, or prostitutes.  After a few moments’ contemplation, she decided to ask the Sorrows. When she queried them, she got only a hint of amusement that she was petitioning the wisdom of the ancients for fashion advice.

 _Pick the blue_ , an elderly woman’s voice whispered.  _You can’t wear yellow with your complexion._ Carys cast up a prayer of thanks to Mythal in the words of her ancient hahren, and dressed herself, taking some care with her hair.  She kept her own long gloves on to disguise the hand she was conjuring from the Fade.  Thus armored, she slipped out the door of her chambers.  She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she had successfully infiltrated the Conclave, solved a shemlen civil war, and killed a putative god.  She could do this.  Shoulders squared, she followed the sound of distant voices.

After some wandering, she found a number of elves with bare faces heading out of the building and into the night.  They were in various types of dress and stages of intoxication, and none gave her more than a passing glance.  Choosing one small band to follow, Carys passed onto a large lawn where strings of twinkling lights like captive fireflies were strung on wires between tall palm tress, illuminating what looked like a garden party.  Musicians both elven and spirit were grouped around the edges of the lawn; their songs were distinct but bled seamlessly into each other as she walked through the yard. 

Carys saw many slaves dressed uniformly in gold tunics with ornaments suggesting the rays of the sun in their hair.  They carried food and drink on gilded platters through the crowd, serving and replacing crystal glasses.

Along the edges of the lawn, small groups were playing lawn games, most of which seemed to involve the use of magic to suspend small objects in fragile stacks or piles.  

Further back in the darkness, other games seemed to be going on- games involving less clothing and fewer toys.

Carys snagged a goblet from a passing slave and infiltrated herself along the edge of one of the larger groups, resolving to listen.

A few hours later, Carys was only slightly better informed than she had been at the commencement of the evening. 

The first group she approached were gossiping indiscreetly about the sexual preferences of a group of June’s priests.  She filed away the assertion that his followers were considered the most perverse.  She was heartened to determine that while the acts they described might have been unfamiliar to her, personally, they were no more obscene than those practiced by the Orlesian high court or the Iron Bull, save for a few involving the aid of willing spirits.  If Solas had not deigned to touch her, she thought, it was not because he was accustomed to consummation of the act of love by means involving animals, obsolete apparatus, or dangerous sex magic.  She frowned.  That probably meant it was just something about her, then.

The second group were engaged in some kind of contest involving poetry.  A speaker would recite a couple of lines, and then the next had to improvise the following couplet by changing the meaning of the final word. It could only have been accomplished in a language as subtle as Elvhen, where each word could have a number of different meanings (sometimes, several at once) depending upon the context. Carys was delighted by the game, and was torn between the competing desires to draw closer and listen and hang back lest she be tapped to participate.  She regretfully departed after a few minutes; it wasn’t helping her to find Solas, or even better understand her place in the timeline.

She was luckier with the third group.  The elves there were listening to a spirit who animatedly recounted some recent duel. It was in the middle of the action when she approached, but she got the feeling that the events it was describing were recent, so she stayed.  She wasn’t particularly interested in who smote who where (shades of the first discussion), but the spirit punctuated his violent reenactment with snatches of pronouncements by the Evanuris.  The fight, she eventually gathered, was between the champions of Falon’Din and Elgar’nan.  This party was being thrown by Elgar’nan to celebrate his victory, with the goal of reconciling the two Evanuris.  Carys nodded along, gathering bits and pieces of the positions of the various gods, but when the spirit finished his story and the group began to drift away, Carys still hadn’t heard any word of Solas, a Dread Wolf, or even a particularly famous or lupine general of Mythal. 

The party was passing into that state of intoxication where conversation between those inebriated and those not became near impossible.  As casually as she’d come,  Carys drifted away, deciding to find her way back to her chambers. 

She’d consumed only one drink, but she found navigating the large complex difficult now that she had nobody to follow.  She found herself in hallways adorned in colors other than yellow and grey several times, and had to re-trace her steps.  She looked at the dark horizon and realized that dawn would come soon. She searched the sky.  If nothing else, she thought she might find Hawke, and Hawke could find their room from the outside. 

She paused in a small courtyard featuring a hot, bubbling pool, and attempted to determine whether it was the same one she had walked past earlier in the day.  While she was frowning down at it, the door opposite opened to expel a waft of young male laughter and wine-scented air.  Carys looked for cover as two men staggered out, arms draped across the other’s shoulders.  Carys tried to step around the pool as they weaved in approach, but the one closest to her unexpectedly stumbled, catching her shoulder as he passed. Carys skipped back a couple of steps to avoid falling into the pool, but instead caught the heel of the dark-haired man in grey velvet, sending him falling backwards and his chestnut-haired companion sprawling at Carys’ feet. 

Carys’ heart knew him before her head did; it seized in her chest and stilled her into a pillar of crystal. His hair was long and intricately braided, though the sides of his head were still shaved close to his scalp. His skin was darker and his freckles were thicker, as though he spent a great deal of time in the sun.  His vallaslin shone with the liquid blue of lyrium across his handsome face.  Above richly embroidered trousers, he was wearing only a loose linen tunic open nearly to the waist and exposing a great deal of muscular chest.  The first conscious thought that penetrated her paralysis, though, was _so that’s what his nose is supposed to look like._ She wondered, in that infinite moment that she looked down at him, who would break it.  

As Solas caught her open-mouthed appraisal, he mistook the reason for it and returned her stare with a distinctly masculine upward twist of his lips.  When she colored and clutched her hands together to regain her composure, he openly grinned up at her from her feet.

He relaxed back and crossed his arms behind his head.

“Savhalla, ina'lan'ehn,” he said.  _Hello, beautiful._

The Sorrows were amused. 

Carys was spared from the need to determine how she felt about that greeting, however, because Solas’ dark-haired companion rolled over, blinked eyes as purple as pansies at her, and vomited all over her boots. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so impressed at how well-received this fic has been so late in the fandom. And it doesn't even have any sex in it! 
> 
> (Yet. I am undecided on the sex.) 
> 
> But have I mentioned how needy I am? Like, so needy that I wake up in the middle of the night to check if there are comments, and if there are, I print them out, bring them back to my nest, consume them, and then regurgitate them to feed to my young? So please comment, regardless of whether you loved this or hated this (but if you hated this, please be specific as to why).


	7. In Which Lavellan Sees the Light

“It’s really not that funny,” Carys told Hawke.  It wasn’t. Carys was many things, but “funny” was never a descriptor that was going to make it into Varric’s account of her deeds, even allowing for artistic license.  Her description of what she had seen and heard that evening had been factual and to the point.  She’d taken great care not to let emotion color her report of making contact with Solas. And his…friend.  And how quickly she had put out the fire that friend started in his sodden attempt to dry off her boots. 

Hawke, however, was nearly sobbing with laughter, kicking her feet against the arm of the divan she sprawled across.  Were those really tears in her eyes?

“It is.  It truly is,” Hawke gasped.  “You’ve been so miserable, so ‘oh no, doom upon all the world, woe is me, the man I love is an ancient god of trickery and more doom, how will I ever complete this doomed quest’ but hey, he’s not really into destroying worlds right now, more into destroying….”  Carys cut her off. 

“I have not been…like that,” Carys insisted.  “And I don’t think this changes anything.  He said he was different when he was younger.  I expected this.” 

She hadn’t.  Expected this. 

Hawke flopped to her side, pillowing her cheek on a tattooed arm.  Somehow, she looked a little buzzed.  Her ivory cheeks had a red flush.  Hadn’t she been out as a bird all evening? 

“Have you been drinking?” Carys asked. 

“Yes.  Don’t change the subject.  You expected to manipulate him with your magical elven twat into destroying the world no more than once?”  Hawke didn’t look upset at that idea- vaguely impressed if anything. 

Carys groaned.  Her feet hurt.   She had walked back in her stockings.  The boots were a total loss.  She was tired.  She would never admit it to Hawke, but she was a little heartsick. 

She walked past Hawke into the bedroom nobody had evicted her from as of yet.  She let herself fall face-first into the intricately pieced silk quilt covering the massive bed. 

“If you’re counting on my feminine wiles to convince Solas of our cause, I’m very sorry to inform you that I don’t think I have any,” she mumbled into the coverlet.  

Carys heard Hawke scrape herself off the divan and stumble to her side. 

“There there,” Hawke said, not sounding at all disappointed, and gingerly patting Carys’ hair.

“Really,” said Carys. “How did you get drunk?  You were a bird." 

“As if something like that was going to stop those elves,” Hawke said, letting her breath whistle through her teeth in admiration. “And stop changing the subject.  Was he more like-“  Hawke adopted a deep masculine tone, “’Hello, beautiful,’ or“ -  and here she made her voice gratingly lascivious - “hel ** _lo_** beautiful!”  

“Ugh,” Carys grunted into the duvet in disgust.  “Why does it even matter.” 

Hawke elbowed her in the ribs.  

“It matters because this is your life!  Weren’t you even a little bit happy he’s still into you?” 

Carys bit her lower lip. It was a bad habit the Keeper had mostly trained her out of by the time she became First.  She resorted to it only in times of real stress.  Which was, to be honest, most of her life. 

“It didn’t matter the first time,” she eventually said.  “He loves me. He really does.  I believe him, even if nobody else will.  But it wasn’t enough.  **_I_** wasn’t enough, then.”

Even years later, rejection still stung her.  She thought he was waiting for the end of the Inquisition for them to really be together.  She hadn’t minded.  She thought she had the rest of her life for them to be together.  Her clan wouldn’t have minded her bringing home a flat-ear apostate mage as a bondmate. Would have been thrilled that she wouldn’t leave them to bond with someone in another clan. 

She thought, actually, that Keeper Deshanna might even have come around on the Fen’Harel bit.  After quite a bit of explanation. 

No, the obstacle had always been Solas just not wanting her enough.  

“Speaking,” said Hawke, “As someone with a great deal of experience in wanting things I can’t have, that’s an utter load of bullshit.”

Carys huffed a bit in disbelief, not turning her head.  

“That man stared at you like you hung the moon and stars,” Hawke insisted.  “Just like everyone else.  I was mad with jealousy.  It wasn’t bad enough that you were cleaning up a god-shaped mess that I made, but there you were, this ethereal misty-eyed creature from the woods with your sad face and your hair like moonbeams, and all those men and women around you couldn’t decide whether they wanted to fuck you, worship you, or both.  Varric included.  I nearly shanked you in the kidneys that day in Crestwood just to remove the competition,” Hawke stated with absolute, ringing sincerity.

Despite herself, Carys giggled, finally rolling to her back with a groan. 

“Thank you,” she said. “But there’s a reason Varric sold so many books about you, and I don’t think it’s his clever use of religious allegory.”

Hawke gave her a curiously gentle smile. 

“Thank you,” she repeated Carys’ words.  “But where does that leave us?  You going to let the future god of rebellion get a leg over?” 

Carys dropped her forearm over her eyes.  “I have no idea.  And I’m in no shape to think about it tonight.  We should probably get some sleep before they kick us out of these rooms and think when I’ve rested and you’re sober.”

“I just spent years in the Fade.  I may never be sober again.  Or sleepy,” Hawke declared.  “But if you want to rest up, I’ll keep scouting around.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find a handsome, hungover elf looking to pull a strange girl with one arm and an attitude.” 

Carys was asleep before she could form a retort. 

 * * * 

Carys woke up to pounding on her door.  She looked around her room wildly, but the window was open, admitting bright daylight, and Hawke was gone. 

She was still wearing the gown she’d found for the night before, but she was decently covered, so she opened the door.

Istannis stood in the hallway, his face screwed up in annoyance, fist still lifted where he’d been knocking.  His eyes scanned her apparel, and his expression grew scandalized.

“Did you find that dress in your room?” he choked out, not bothering with a greeting. 

“I think Ghilan’nain wore it better, but with a few alterations, you’d be stiff competition,” a cheerful voice commented to Istannis’ side.  

Carys pulled the door open all the way. 

Istannis was accompanied by Solas’ companion from the previous evening.  He was freshly dressed and showed no signs that he was suffering from his previous state of intoxication. 

Promisingly, he held a pile of folded clothing in his arms, topped with a soft new pair of leather boots.  

They made eye contact, and he grinned, showing straight white teeth that gleamed against his dark skin. Like Solas now did, he wore Mythal’s vallaslin in shining lines across his face. 

“Why are you in Ghilan’nain’s old chambers?” Istannis choked, still looking appalled. 

Carys looked around the rooms in surprise, as though she’d find the answers there. 

“This is where they put us,” Carys told him, leaving it vague.

“Well, Ghilan’nain is hardly likely to use them again!” the second elf said, inviting himself in to leave his bundle of clothing on a side table. 

He turned quickly on his heel and presented his open hand to her.

“Felassan, at your service,” he announced, violet eyes gleaming with suppressed laughter. 

“Carys,” she responded, tentatively taking his hand. 

The Elvhen did not shake, Carys discovered.  He clasped her wrist and lifted their conjoined hands to his lips, bussing them noisily.

“Can we pretend that this is our first meeting?” he asked her, leaning in, eyes dancing.

“I am honestly surprised you remember anything to the contrary,” Carys said solemnly. 

“Actually I do not,” he said.  “But I was instructed to bring new boots to a beautiful, unknown lady who might be, for reasons unexplained, barefoot and angry at me.  I filled in the gaps.”

He smiled charmingly. 

Carys was charmed. 

But she wondered at the implied reference to Solas. 

“I have the oddest feeling this isn’t the first time you’ve done this,” Carys said, gesturing for both of them to come further into her chambers and shutting the door. 

“I haven’t had the occasion to bring boots, specifically, on the morning after,” Felassan said, winking, “but I am told I make a lovely apology.”  

“Oh, is **_that_** what you do for Our Lady?” Istannis asked, broad nose tilted to the ceiling. 

Felassan’s smile did not slip, but he let his shoulders flex subtly as he did not respond to Istannis’ dig.   The smaller man shrank back a bit.  Had Carys seen Istannis fight during the night of the raid?  She didn’t recall. 

Carys took a step to the pile of clothing, drawing their attention and defusing some of the tension of the room. 

“I’m very grateful for the clothing, and the replacement boots,” she told them.  “The opportunity to enter the Fade this most recent time was unexpected, and I was not completely prepared.” 

Both men gave her their full attention at that. 

“Have you spoken about that with anyone?” Istannis asked, eyebrows narrowing. 

Carys shook her head. “Only Lida.  And Hawke doesn’t speak Elvhen.” 

Istannis scanned the chamber at Carys’ reference.  “And where is the spirit now?”

Carys shrugged. “She’s hard to keep track of. And not necessarily a spirit.”  

Felassan was still listening to their conversation. 

 “You’re fascinating, and possibly important,” he said, cutting off Istannis’ line of inquiry. “I want to ask you a thousand questions and then pretend I knew the answers all along.  Has nobody claimed you yet?” 

“Pardon?” Carys said, frowning in confusion.

“You have no vallaslin, but have you sworn allegiance to any of the gods?” Felassan asked. 

“I’ve only been here a few days,” Carys said, deflecting.  “Most of what I know of the gods was learned in the Fade,” she said, omitting that it was learned in the Fade and then conveyed to her by Solas. 

“The Fade is poorly understood,” Istannis interjected.  “Pride asked Lida to bring this one and the spirit-bird here for further study.” 

Carys desperately wanted to grab that conversational threat, but-

“Lida!” Felassan laughed. “Like a load of luggage on the back of a halla, I’d wager.”

Istannis frowned at him. “I heard that the All-Mother forbid you from gambling.”

Felassan examined his fingernails.  “Only because I won too often.”

“And started a brawl,” Istannis prodded him.

“Which we also won,” Felassan retorted.  “You are so unpleasant in the mornings, falon.  No wonder you were exiled to the Dragon’s Heart.”

Istannis’ nostrils flared white.  Carys was by now tired of keeping the two men from each other’s throats.   She cleared her own.

“Is there a time and place we can discuss my journeys in the Fade?” she asked.  “After I’ve had a chance to change out of this….lovely…borrowed gown?”  She stuttered on that a bit, trying not to consider that this particular piece of clothing had been worn by the Halla-Mother. 

Felassan swept an abrupt bow, turning his leg out ostentatiously.  “Shame on me from keeping you, my dear.  The next few days will be subsumed with the conclusion of the rituals, but if you are a scholar as Istannis tells me, perhaps you would like to observe them?  Their like have never yet been performed.  Because we made them up for the occasion.” 

That sounded very promising, so Carys nodded and agreed that Felassan- just Felassan- would meet her and Hawke, if Hawke returned soon enough, and take her to the commencement of the day’s ceremonies. 

Carys wished she could ask if Solas would be there too.

* * * 

Carys’ neck ached from staring up, and her wrist was trembling under Hawke’s weight, but she was transfixed by the beauty of the rites that unfolded in the vast dark space that served as Elgar’nan’s throne room.

She was initially confused by the unornamented black stone that comprised the walls, floors, and ceiling alike; the rocks appeared to have been hewn directly from the volcanic mountainside and barely polished.  They absorbed both light and sound. But once hundreds of elves crowded around the raised central dais, and three figures entered through the small arch in the very back of the room, she understood. 

There were three unornamented stone benches on the dais.  Three figures who sat on them.  But every beam of light in the room- pouring through high open windows- converged and reflected off of the central one, a man in golden armor polished to a mirror-like brightness.    

It had to be a spell. The reflection was so bright that it hurt Carys’ eyes to look at him, despite, or perhaps because of, the dimness of the room.  Other than the sense of brightness and gold, Carys couldn’t get a fix on the man, and her gaze bounced off of him to the other two people seated to his sides. 

The man at Elgar’nan’s left had milky white skin and hair the color of dried blood.  He wore segmented armor in flat, matte black, without design or ornament.  Although Carys was not close enough to see the color of his eyes, his expression was flat and still.  Carys was put in mind of a lidless reptile waiting on a hot rock for night to fall. She suppressed a grimace.

She’d deliberately avoided looking at the final figure, afraid of being transfixed or overcome by the Sorrows, but her gaze was inexorably drawn to the woman to Elgar’nan’s left, who delicately rested her hand on the forearm of the God of Vengeance. 

Mythal wore a long green gown sewn with white-gold beads in small, shimmering tendrils.  The gown trailed around her feet, but left her golden-brown shoulders bare, save for a curtain of the same twinkling strands of beads trailing down to her elbows.  Her hair was made of small, precise ringlets in every shade from snow to ebony, and platinum in between, all spun in a halo behind a glittering diamond tiara that vaguely suggested the twin horns of a high dragon.  Carys knew that her eyes were as golden as Elgar’nan’s armor, and her face was ever young and beautiful. 

Carys, not the Sorrows, stared at the woman and tried to see any similarity with Flemeth.  The eyes only, she thought.  This elven woman was as still and majestic as a mountain peak; Flemeth had nearly vibrated with manic energy.

But she had not come to see the Evanuris. Not really.  

She, like Felassan and hundreds of other spectators, was kneeling on the floor.  The position wasn’t a problem for her; she could see the faded echoes of this in a number of Dalish rituals.  Until she’d become First, she’d knelt with the rest of the clan, and on the forest floor, not the small leather pad currently cushioning her knees. 

A smaller group of people had seats in front of the dais.  These were dressed nearly as ornately as the Evanuris; Carys had first recognized Eolas, who was acting as a kind of master of ceremonies and leading the chanting.  The chanting was lovely, actually.  She supposed these elves had literal centuries to work on their singing voices. 

But off to the side-

Oh.

Solas was seated near Mythal, arms crossed against his chest.  It took Carys a few moments to recognize him- his head was tilted forward, and he was wearing a large animal skull carved out of rock crystal (or something- it could have been solid diamond, for all Carys knew) as a helmet or hairpiece. 

His fashion choices were more spectacular in this time, but equally regrettable, Carys decided. 

She studied him for a moment.  His stillness during the ceremony was familiar.

Eolas’ voice soared through a minor key. 

Solas did not move. She recognized his posture now- he was asleep. Solas could sleep in places and conditions lesser men scoffed at.  In the middle of the day while sandstorms scoured the Hissing Wastes.  Inches above solid ice in the Emprise as high dragons shrieked above them.  At his desk in the Skyhold rotunda while Dorian rained books around him.  Bull joked that Solas could teach his soldiers how to sleep. 

Carys suppressed a huff of righteous indignation.  It was one thing to sleep through Cassandra’s mission briefings. It was another to sleep through this beautiful event.  

But maybe this was his day-to-day?  Did the Evanuris do this all the time? 

The chanting was swelling to a shuddering crescendo.  As the music crashed and faded against the basalt walls, the three Evanuris on the dais rose.  Mythal retrieved a slim golden chain from Eolas and pulled Falon’Din and Elgar’nan’s hands together.  She bound their hands together, Elgar’nan’s above Falon’Din’s.  Their expressions were difficult to read, from Carys’ position far back in the crowd, but the assembled masses cheered in joy when Mythal lifted their conjoined hands into the air.  

The light from the windows increased, pooling over the dark stone and catching on the three figures above them all. 

Carys looked back to Solas, and caught his gaze just before Elgar’nan’s light spell forced her to close her eyes against the golden surge.  She tilted her head back and enjoyed the glow of his regard. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typically update weekly, but politics have been making me legit sad for the past few weeks, and productivity in all areas of my life has slumped. Anyway, it's not like things can actually get much worse, so....have some beautiful elves doing pretty things.


	8. In Which Elgar'nan Demonstrates His Big Dick Energy

The Evanuris swept out of the chamber, leading a sea of people behind them.  The several hundred elves who had witnessed the ceremony were filing out more or less orderly.  Carys didn’t have the day’s schedule, but everyone else seemed to.

“Where are we going?” Carys asked Felassan, once she managed to draw close to him.  She had to tuck Hawke close against her chest to avoid jostling her in in the crowd, which Hawke nonetheless failed to appreciate. 

Felassan gave Hawke (her wings, her talons, and her sharp beak) as much of a wide berth as he could, but he managed to stage-whisper to Carys.

“Oh, you haven’t heard? You are in for a treat.  Did you ever wonder which god had the biggest prick?”

“No,” Carys told Felassan, raising her eyebrows at him.  

“Well, I’ll tell you there’s been a great deal of debate.  Elgar’nan, in his power and wisdom, aims to put that all to rest today,” Felassan said grandly.  

The sea of people slowed and converged against a large eluvian in the next chamber.  Felassan put a careful hand on Carys’ elbow and piloted her through after the bulk of the crowd passed through.

Carys emerged, blinking, into bright dusty-blue sunlight.  She had come from the interior of a great hall, but she thought the sun was in a different position.  The air, at least, was dry and warm, and tasted of dust.  She wasn’t short, in this time, but she was not tall either, and she couldn’t get a good look at her surroundings until Felassan piloted them past the backs of the crowd who preceded them through the eluvian.  Their group stood near the edge of a great chasm. On the other side, many hundreds of feet across, Carys could make out a corresponding crowd.  To their right, there were risers and chairs facing the gap, and at the top, a canopied platform shading the figures of the three Evanuris. The people in seats all had bare faces and ornate clothing, most in shades of yellow and orange.  Their appearances were otherwise as varied as any group of alienage elves, with a rainbow of hairstyles and skin colors. 

Felassan’s gaze drew her attention down to the base of the canyon, far below.  A thin ribbon of grey represented a river, and upstream to the right, it split around a large golden rock or mountain.  The banks of the river were thick and crowded with- people?  The air shimmered in the heat, and the distance and dust prevented a clear view.

“What-“ Carys began, unable to make sense of the scene.  She shook her head.  

Felassan smiled, but his eyes were shadowed. 

“Can you see everything? On this side, the people of Elgar’nan and Mythal. Priests, Sentinels, courtiers, and,” he tapped Carys’ elbow, “special guests.” 

He nodded across the divide. “Over there, the people of Falon’Din.”

He looked up at the shaded pavilion.  “Up top, of course, the happy reunited family.”

He tilted his head at the risers.  “Seated, the generous patrons of today’s endeavors.”

At last he looked into the gap.  “And down there, the industrious tools of today’s feat of artistic mastery.” 

Carys squinted down into the canyon, leaning as close to the edge as she dared.   The banks were- moving?  It was too far to see clearly. 

“Ah, do you not know this spell?” Felassan asked. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

He made a languid gesture with his hand, and the air in front of him shifted and cleared.  Carys studied the minute flows of magical energy; he was compressing the air into something like a…lens?  Yes, something like one of Dagna’s spyglasses.  

She copied it as best she could, though subtlety was not her forte, and she knew she’d need a lifetime to match Felassan’s exact, minute flows of energy.  Felassan helpfully nudged a few streams of energy, and at last, the air before her cleared and magnified the scene below. 

Far below the crowd, arrayed along the banks of the narrow stream were masses upon masses of people. Thousands.  Perhaps hundreds of thousands. 

Carys’ breath caught in her throat.  Every single man and woman below bore Elgar’nan’s vallaslin bisecting his or her face.  There was no camp or other signs of habitation or travel below; each must have traveled to the river by eluvian that morning. These people all faced the same direction up the river, appearing to stand and wait without conversation or other mingling. Their clothing, as best Carys could see, was drab and tattered. 

Creators.  Here were the slaves.  These were the ancestors of the Dalish.  These were _her_ people.  

“Look at them all,” Hawke breathed, gripping Carys’ forearm tightly so that she could peer through Felassan’s hard air lens.  “I don’t think there’s anything good you need that many slaves for?”

“Are there good uses for just one slave?” Carys responded.  

“Eh,” said Hawke. “Former slaves are pretty good for…well, I’ll tell you another time.” 

Felassan nudged her. “Stop barking at each other like dogs,” he said.  “Look, it’s starting.” 

High above them, Elgar’nan stood, raising his arms dramatically.  The crowd stilled to watch him, though Carys couldn’t hear his words from her place on the edge of the crowd. 

Far below, the crowd of slaves pulsed with movement and began to move upstream as a coordinated mass towards the large outcropping that split the stream.  As Carys watched in horrified silence, the slaves began to climb the rock like ants at a picnic, their distant bodies mere specks of color against the stone. 

Elgar’nan stood through it all, moving his arms like a conductor before a vast symphony. Somehow, he was directing the army of slaves as they- carved?  Yes, they were carving the stone. 

Carys no longer bore the Mark.   But she felt that its roots were deeper in her body; Solas took her arm, but he could not completely extract that portion of the orb’s (his?) magic had made her sympathetic to the Fade.  Elgar’nan was not drawing on the Fade.  However he was controlling thousands in this working, it did not draw from the energy of the aetherial plane. 

It was inconceivable that one person controlled this much power.  Every living creature had a small store of personal magic; even Tranquil and dwarves, completely shut off from the Fade, could live and breathe and converse. But that personal magic could not extend much past the user’s fingertips; that magic was needed to keep a body alive. The only way to draw more power was to draw it from the Fade, or from lyrium, which Carys had seen none of, or from….

“Blood magic,” she whispered.  “He’s doing blood magic.  Controlling all those people.  How…whose blood is it?” 

Felassan looked at her sharply.  “I wouldn’t even think that thought,” he cautioned her.  “He’s one of the Evanuris, not one of the Enemies, and therefore what he is doing cannot be blood magic.  Definitionally, if not logically.”  

 Carys pressed her trembling lips together.  Solas would have told her, surely, if the Evanuris were practicing blood sacrifice. 

“How?” she asked again, though her throat felt very dry and close as the slaves worked the stone into the beginnings of a man’s figure. 

Felassan edged them further away from the bulk of the crowd. 

“It’s not really the done thing, to talk about it,” he cautioned her.  She nodded.  Good to know.   Once he’d sufficiently assured her discretion, he tapped his forehead, and the shining lines inscribed there. 

“The vallaslin?” Carys asked in confusion.  “But they’re just tattoos, aren’t they?” 

Just tattoos.  Five years ago, in another life, she would have struck a shem who expressed that opinion. 

“Once they were,” Felassan acknowledged.  “Another of Pride’s brilliant, poorly-thought out plans.  A way to allow the All-Mother to draw upon our strength and direct us in battle- just make the tattoos out of blood.  Ours, hers, and a little something extra.  Not blood magic, oh no.  The Enemies can’t do anything like this.  But of course the other Evanuris came up with a better use for it than just coordinating attacks.”

Carys felt a little sick, watching the slaves work the stone.  Did they even have tools?  She didn’t think she saw tools.  They must be carving with their bare hands.  

“It’s a terrible thing to do to them,” Carys said softly.  “Do they even know what’s they’re doing?”

Felassan nodded. “Yes.  They just can’t stop themselves.” 

No wonder Solas hated her vallaslin.  No wonder he scorned the Dalish.  No wonder he raged at her for taking on the geas of the Well of Sorrows.  This was an obscenity.  Stripping away the will of thousands to create a monument to Elgar’nan’s vanity. 

She snuck another look at him.  He was in the middle of a crowd , most of whom seemed, if not young, then younger than the majority of the priests Carys had seen.  His posture was relaxed, confident.  His jaw was tight, but Carys imagined that someone who had not spent as many hours as Carys examining the planes of his face would not see the subtle tension there.  If he were anything like the man Carys had known (thought she knew), he would hate every minute of this.  His gaze, when he looked away from the men and women trying to draw him into conversation, went up to the pavilion at the top of the stands.

Why was he down here, and not up there with the gods?  Wasn’t he one of them?  Carys realized that he was not the Dread Wolf from the beginning of the story, but had not thought that he went through some apotheosis, like Ghilan’nain.  What was he to these elves right now?

Hawke got bored and took off, soaring in the direction of the emerging statue.  Carys wished she could leave as well, but the program seemed to involve watching until the statue was complete.  Carys drew on her training, schooled herself not to fidget or shift on her feet as she watched.

It was some time before Felassan smirked and murmured, “and there we have it.  The biggest cock in Elvhenan is crafted for the biggest asshole in all Elvhenan.”  Carys swallowed a nervous giggle and squinted into the distance.  She was far from an expert, but the genitalia the unfortunate slaves were now sculpting did seem implausible for an anatomically normal male elf. 

The crowd was bored now. It was very hot as the afternoon sun beat on their heads, and the novelty of the giant statue was wearing off for the spectators.  Most of them had moved to the shaded area below the stands. 

Solas was speaking with a small knot of elves wearing Elgar’nan’s vallaslin, but his posture was even more withdrawn than before.  His arms were crossed tightly across his chest, and he shook his head as he replied to something one said.  

Both Carys and Felassan seemed driven to edge close enough to eavesdrop, so they drifted in his direction without any spoken agreement to do so.  

One man with his blond hair tied in a complicated knot behind his head was speaking loudly, hand waving languidly in the air to punctuate his points. 

“…when I return to the Sun’s Rest.  It’s hotter than Mythal’s snatch out here, and twice as dry.”

Carys and a number of the listeners visibly winced at that.  Solas only turned his head to look directly at the elf who had spoken. 

A woman bearing Mythal’s vallaslin rounded on the first speaker. 

“Shut your blaspheming mouth, Arrith!” she said, taking a menacing step towards him.  Solas lifted a hand and shooed her back behind him. Solas said something quiet, but the wind tore his words away before they reached Carys. 

“I suppose you’d know, Pride,” another of Elgar’nan’s people chimed in.  “Say, does that make you a…motherfucker?”

Many of the elves nearby were quietly walking away or at least putting some space between themselves and whatever was happening.  Solas’ face was hard and haughty.  Carys recognized that expression from the year he spent on campaign with a group of people that he, by and large, disdained.  Someone was about to get cut off at the knees with a precisely placed word or two. 

Arrith laughed.  “Or does that make her a dogf-“

Solas turned as fast as a striking snake and punched the man in the face.  

Bone and cartilage crunched, and Solas hissed, shaking his hand as blood dripped from his fingers. He wasn’t wearing gauntlets.

Everyone who hadn’t already moved away froze in place.  

Arrith stumbled back, hands clasped around his face.  He made a honking sound of pain and anger.  The noise seemed to prompt his cronies to turn and, as one, lunge for Solas. He went down under at least three bodies, causing at least as many of Mythal’s people to jump in after them.

Carys had wrapped a hand around Felassan’s upper arm without really thinking about it.   Felassan turned his shoulders to look at her with a slightly regretful smile, and patted her hand over his bicep.  He lifted his shoulders in a minute, sheepish shrug, and then sprinted into the melee, whooping in battle-joy when another elf tackled him from behind. 

That familiar surge of fear, anger, and exhilaration that preceded every fight rose in Carys.  None of the combatants appeared to be using magic, not even shields, but many of the assembled crowd wore belt-knives.  If Solas got stabbed to death in the first week she was in Elvhenan, this was all for naught. 

Carys was a mage, but she’d grown up Dalish, and she’d been fighting for her life only a little harder over the previous three years than she had the twenty-one before that.  She could scrap nearly as well as Sera could, and she was bracing herself to start kicking out knees and elbows and other weak points when someone caught her under the arms and dragged her bodily away from the fight.

“No no, sweetheart,” Hawke said.  “He’s a big boy, let him handle his own fights, like you said.”  

The woman was back in human form, but not a single person was watching anything other than the ongoing brawl.  

“What if they-“ Carys said, anguished, rounding on Hawke.

“He made it through worse than this, if your timeline is right,” Hawke reminded her.  “And look.” 

Carys turned back to the melee.  Felassan was up, and he’d found a short length of wood, which he was holding like a rapier.  He had his other arm out in a fencing posture.  He had blood on his face and teeth, but she wasn’t sure if it was his own. Felassan lunged forward and snapped his makeshift weapon against an opponent’s wrist, causing the woman to drop the dagger she brandished and cradle her doubtless shattered hand to her chest.  It took Carys another moment to locate Solas.  He was at the far side of the crowd, kneeling on Arrith’s chest, and firmly rubbing the man’s broken face into the dirt.  Several of his braids had come loose from the golden cord that tied them behind Solas’ head and dangled over his tunic.  Solas’ expression was one of fierce joy; his grin displayed most of his top row of sharp, white teeth.

It was an expression she’d never before seen on his face.

Mythal’s followers were ready to completely prevail when the entire group froze in a flash of green light. Carys felt the afternoon’s first surge of Fade magic since they’d arrived via eluvian. 

She was luckily outside the range of the effect, and she craned her neck to see where it originated from, since it had snared Mythal and Elgar’nan’s people alike. 

On the far side of the stands, Carys saw a figure descend down the ramp from above.  She squinted.  Eolas.  

He walked into the middle of the group, looked around himself with apparent disgust, then snapped his fingers.  The stasis field lifted, but each of the fighters seemed to have been aware of the pause in the action, and stilled appropriately.  Solas slowly picked himself up off of Arrith’s chest, not looking very sorry at all.  He smoothed back his hair with a delicate gesture, and ostentatiously straightened his clothes.  

Eolas jerked his head and Solas followed him away from the crowd.  Carys was close enough to overhear pieces of conversation. 

“-was your idea in the first place!” Eolas said, voice angry.

“-like this spectacle,” Solas drawled, voice smooth again.

“Then you should not have-“

“-enough! Any benefit has already-“ 

“-like a spoiled child!” 

Eolas was shouting by the end, hands moving violently in the air as he and Solas argued.  Solas sneered down his nose at the man, looking not at all affected by the lecture. 

Felassan limped back to Carys’ side, mussed but undeterred. 

“If Elgar’nan wished to take offense and call off the peace, he would not need Pride’s little provocation to do so.  Arrith deserved a stiff kick in the balls, at the least,” he opined.  

He withdrew a little metal flask from the wide sash around his waist, unscrewed the ornate, acorn-carved cap, and took a deep swallow.  Seeing Carys’ skeptical expression, he offered it with a flourish.

“No thank you,” Carys told him.

“I’ll have some, thanks,” Hawke said, reaching over Carys’ shoulder.

Felassan’s eyes widened a bit to see Hawke in human form, but he handed it over readily enough.

Hawke drained the rest of the flask.  All eyes were still pointed at the statue- nobody seemed to have noticed a shem in full armor on the outskirts of the crowd. 

“Ugh, skin-temperature liquor,” Hawke complained.  “Why didn’t anyone cater this big group-jerk?  I have no idea what’s going on, but those elves down in the valley are just about ready to drop, and I'm not excited to watch that, if I'm not allowed to do anything about it.”

Carys looked at the monument in the distance.  The statue’s features were mechanically perfect, and its arms were lifted, palms pointing inward.  She couldn’t tell whether the figure was meant to be reaching for the sky or pulling it down.  Both, probably.

Solas was following Eolas up into the risers, posture stiff and unabashed.   He looked over at them- Felassan and herself- and Carys could have sworn she saw a flash of anger cross his face, quickly smothered in his previous expression of languid arrogance. 

“What is he doing?” she asked Felassan, forgetting not to show her interest.  

Felassan smiled, retrieving his empty flask from Hawke. 

“I doubt he thought his peace accords would lead to this.”  He shook his head.  “Stop one war, and ten thousand slaves give their lives instead for...pride.” 

He offered his arms to the both of them, and steered them back towards the edge of the cliff.  He seemed determined to watch until the bloody work was all done. 

“You’ll see, all his ideas turn out to be terrible ones,” Felassan said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friends, thank you so much to everyone who commented or followed or left kudos. I feel like this site is the only good thing that has happened to me this year. This fandom is wonderful.


	9. In Which Felassan Is Still Drunk

The air was frigid when they stepped back through the eluvian into Elgar’nan’s palace.  Carys thought at first that it was just the difference in temperature between the desert and the humid unknown shore, but when servants met most members of the entering crowd with heavy fur robes, Carys realized that the large chamber beyond the eluvian was actually radiating the icy air. 

She didn’t own a heavy fur robe. (Rather, she didn’t own a heavy robe in _this_ world; fennec foxes were cute, but Haven had been cold, and the Dalish took a rather more practical approach to their relationship with cute wildlife than many shems appreciated. She would never have killed a halla for its pelt, but the foxes were a different matter.)  She was shivering when she entered the redecorated throne room. 

The center platform had been mostly dismantled in favor of a high table set for less than a dozen, where the Evanuris and a few other bare-faced guests dined above the rest of the crowd.   At Elgar’nan’s right hand, however, one man in golden armor bore Elgar’nan’s vallaslin in gold ink across his face.  He laughed and raised a crystal goblet in a toast in the All-Father’s direction as Carys watched. 

The source of the cold air was the myriad ice sculptures decorating the feast hall that evening. The ice sculptures appeared to depict Elgar’nan’s many heroic feats; here he slew a giant sea monster, there he battled with a rampant griffon.  The monsters were made of seafood. 

Ice and snow crunched under their feet as they walked through the hall; it was piled in banks near the walls as though a snowstorm had simply rolled through minutes before. It did not melt; Carys could feel the hum of magic around her, and took small comfort that it had the taste of the Fade.  It might be frivolous, but it had cost no slave’s life. 

A spirit whose hair appeared to crackle and spark like Orlesian fireworks was tending the bar near the front of the room.  It spun and moved as fast as eyes could track its movements as it poured drinks and carved fruit for garnishes.  A spirit of celebration, perhaps?  It sang loudly as it dispensed drinks, though Carys did not see any of the Elvhen speak to it. 

Hawke’s eyes were round as she examined a creditable approximation of a fear demon near them. Its claws were formed of pink, steamed crab legs. Its eyes were mollusk shells.  Its robes were composed of translucent slices of smoked fish edged in caviar.  Large prawns rode waves of ice behind it, ready to reinforce the sea-demon in battle.   

“I’m going to put that in my mouth,” Hawke whispered. 

“Whatever you want,” Carys sighed.  She didn’t care for seafood. 

Felassan and Solas were nowhere to be seen, so Carys lingered on the edge of the crowd while Hawke piled a gilded platter with oysters and lobster tails. 

The two of them were underdressed for this party and more conspicuous than they usually were, so as soon as Hawke had looted the buffet to her satisfaction, they sidled out of the ballroom and back to their rooms. 

Carys was relieved that they had not yet been evicted; someone had even been in to tidy and clean. Hawke took off a few pieces of her armor (it seemed to reappear every time Hawke changed back from her eagle form, and Carys didn’t care to think too deeply about the implications of that) and sprawled on a couch with her platter of seafood. 

“Did you always like those little sea-bugs, or is this a fish eagle thing?” Carys asked when Hawke cracked open a shrimp tail and slurped the innards noisily. 

“These are delicacies,” Hawke informed her.  “I couldn’t afford them until I got back from the Deep Roads.  But Kirkwall’s on the sea.  My mother threw a big party once we were in her estate, and she had a big shrimp bar. Well, not as big as the one we just saw.  No magic involved.  But she had cocktail sauce, which is better than magic as an accompaniment for shellfish.” 

Carys tipped her head back and tried to filter out Hawke’s noisy enjoyment of her dinner.  She wished she had something to do, some task to pour her sadness and anxiety and grief into.  A Dalish camp was an endless font of chores.  The Inquisition had been too.  But her uncertain status on the outskirts of Mythal’s retinue afforded her too much free time and no clear duties. 

They only had a few more minutes of silence, however, before Carys' door swung open and admitted a gaggle of young elves in Mythal’s vallaslin, led by Felassan. 

“Ah, here’s a better spot for the party,” he declared.  “Not a sun-worshipper among us, and there’s no need for winter clothing.” 

Carys assumed, from his loud voice and exaggerated gestures, that he was already drunk.  That was quick, she thought, as he bent to buss her cheek and press a bottle of wine into her hands.    Carys recognized several of his friends from the earlier brawl, but not from her trip with Lida and Istannis.  

Felassan’s friends had looted the banquet to the same extent as Hawke, and brought various bottles of liquor along as well.  They seemed in high spirits as they introduced themselves and made themselves at home in the living area of Carys and Hawke’s suite. 

Carys was mildly perplexed as to why they were all in her room, but she supposed that these junior members of Mythal’s retinue had perhaps not been granted quarters as fine as the ones Carys had talked her way into. 

Hawke, at least, was enthusiastically received, despite the language barrier.  Hawke deftly opened bottles of wine using the point of her serrated dagger and was instantly embraced by the assembled elves as a kindred spirit. 

Carys did her best to mingle with them, though she was sorely not in the mood to celebrate. 

“I’m not sure if you drink, but if you do, you should try this,” Felassan said, pressing a silver mug of bubbling, transparent liquid at her.  

“I do,” Carys protested, accepting it.  The Dalish had many different drinks for different occasions.  There was the mildly alcoholic, fermented halla milk, brewed in leather sacks and swinging from aravels in transit, which even youngsters and the elderly consumed when no clean sources of water were available. There was Hahren Mighis’ berry wine, which brought such a good price at market that it paid for new wheels for his aravel one year.  There was dandelion wine in spring and elderberry wine in fall.  Carys had also been familiar, long before the Inquisition, with Antivan whiskey and Nevarran clear spirits. 

Carys was disappointed that the drink Felassan gave her was better.  She didn’t want to admit that any part of this beautiful and terrible world was better.  It was crisp and bubbly on her tongue, with a slightly floral aftertaste. 

“It’s supposed to be served in a little rock crystal glass, but one must make do as a guest, after all,” Felassan said. 

Carys forced a smile. “How much longer is this celebration supposed to last?” she asked.

“One more night,” Felassan told her.  “The All-Mother may linger a few more days, or not, to wrap up business, but Falon’Din will likely stomp on home to break his toys and torture his retainers after tomorrow.”

“And you?” Carys asked, though what she really wanted to know was where Solas would go. 

Felassan shrugged. “As always, I am at my Lady’s service. I will go where she directs me.”

Carys nodded uncertainly. Felassan took pity on her, and told her that she would have more opportunity to question Mythal’s retainers after Elgar’nan’s triumph ended. 

“You should ask Pride to take you to the Vir Dirthara,” he said, patting her shoulder.  “He’s there once a fortnight, at least.  Whatever you’re trying to learn, it will be recorded there.”

He wandered off after that, leaving Carys with her mug and her uncertainties.  She and Hawke were there on sufferance, and she feared that sufferance would run out before she could infiltrate Mythal’s inner retinue, and thereby Solas’.  Felassan had shown a marked lack of curiosity about her and Hawke thus far, and his introspection was shared by nearly every elf she had encountered.  These people cared nothing for other people or cultures. Did they know about the dwarves? She assumed that they did, if they had already encountered shemlen.  She had seen no evidence, however, of any kind of trade with dwarven thaigs. 

Hawke was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a trio of Felassan’s friends.  As best Carys could tell, they were teaching her Elvhen swears. 

“Wolf cock!” Hawke yelled, with creditable pronunciation.  The elves cheered.  Carys suppressed a groan.  If anything, Hawke was doing a better job at infiltration than Carys was. 

Carys didn’t think she could keep up a happy face that evening, though, so she slipped out to the balcony off her bedchamber.  She could see the ocean from the furthest corner, so she craned her head to see the place where the sun had recently slipped below the horizon. 

These had to be lands she had never traveled to- or would never travel to, long in the future. Time travel was something only Dorian could wrap his head around.  In any event, she was only dimly aware of a western sea.  These lands would suffer from several Blights and fall off the map. 

Few people would ever see the sun set over the sea, in her time. 

“A bloody sunset seems a fitting end to the day,” Solas’ rich voice said from behind her.  

Carys had not registered his approach- or perhaps some suppressed part of her still expected Solas to be at her side.  In either case, she did not startle when he came to stand next to her.

She turned her head enough to see him out of the corner of her eye.  He had changed into something more casual than the embroidered robes he’d worn to the morning ceremony.   There was still beading and fur trim involved, though.  He had little gold cuffs and rings along the long edges of his ears, and gold clasps holding back his long, braided hair.  She had the same dizzying sensation of dislocation she’d felt the day he revealed himself as Fen’Harel, the same urge to shake him and tell him to take off his costume and come home. 

But which one was the costume?  This gilding, or the homespun tunic?

“Pardon my manners.  I am Solas,” he said, catching her gaze and bowing his head. 

“I know,” she said, then cringed, thinking that she needed to reintroduce herself to the love of her life. 

But he quirked his lips at her response, scanning her in turn. 

“Is that Felassan’s old tunic?  Is _that_ what he brought you?” Solas asked her, looking mildly appalled. 

Carys looked down her front. The tunic was baggy, but it was far from the worst thing she’d ever been given to wear.  (Cassandra’s mirrored leather pajamas came to mind.)  

“Maybe?” she said, looking over her shoulder and into the next room.  Felassan was reclining on a couch with his head in the lap of one of his friends.  His sleeve was trailing into a puddle of wine on the floor.  

Carys suddenly smiled. “I’d imagine it’s not the first time someone else has shown up in Felassan’s clothing the morning after a big party.”  

Solas coughed, caught a bit off guard by her comment.   “Likely pulled directly from his bedroom floor, I am sure.” 

He brushed his hair back over his shoulder and sighed. 

“I must apologize for how we met.  I knew neither who you were nor how this day would go.” 

“Oh,” Carys said, chewing her lip as she thought about that.  “Felassan already apologized for my boots.  Nobody here promised me anything.    I came here to learn, and everyone has been very…accommodating, all things considered.” 

Solas jaw tightened. “We can do better than this,” he said, half to himself.  “After tomorrow, you need not….well.  I have a few more things to attend here, but I look forward to speaking with you soon about your journeys in the Fade.  I received Lida’s report, but I have more questions than answers about you and your partner.” 

“Hawke?” Carys said, surprised to hear her described thus.  “She’s not my…mine.”

“I see,” Solas said, smirking a bit.  “She had her tongue half down Lathari’s throat, back there, but I would hardly be the one to criticize how someone else arranges their affairs.”

Hawke was doing what?

Carys barely cut off a curse by his own future name, and mumbled excuses instead.  She hurried back into the parlor and found Hawke spinning an empty wine bottle on the floor, surrounded by a cheerful crowd of intoxicated elves. 

“You’re going to cause an inter-dimensional incident,” she accused Hawke in Common. 

Hawke pouted at her as two of the elves began to embrace. 

“If you don’t play nicely with these elves, they’re not going to keep you, and you’re not going to have _time_ to work your way back into your boyfriend’s trousers.” 

“That is _not_ what this is about,” Carys hissed. 

“Well I don’t bloody see why it isn’t!”  Hawke said, shrugging off one of her new friends and standing up.  “This might be all we get!  This might be our world now.  Why don’t you try living in it?” 

Carys jerked back at that comment.  Blood roared in her ears.  She remembered the countless backs of her ancestors as they marched on the stone. 

“Why would I want to live in this world?” Carys asked.  “You saw what they did to those slaves today, Hawke.  Why would anyone want to bring this world back?  What’s good about _this_?”  

Several elves were looking at them now, faces a mix of concern and derision.  She must look a sight, shouting at the human in a language nobody else could understand.

Hawke’s face softened. She impulsively reached out and pulled Carys into a bear hug.  Carys resisted at first, but Hawke was implacable. 

“Come here.  Come here, big girl.” 

Carys gave half a sob into Hawke’s shoulder.  Hawke was big and busty and smelled like sweat and leather, but she gave in and hugged Hawke back.  

“I believe in you, sweetheart,” Hawke said.  “You’ll fix him.” 

Carys pressed her face against Hawke’s furred pauldron.  She heard Solas direct his friends to pick up their trash and move the party elsewhere.  Carys wiped her eyes and turned to see him collect Felassan and point the other man towards the door. 

“We have taken enough of your time for the evening,” he said over his shoulder to Carys.  “I look forward to seeing you again, perhaps under calmer circumstances.”

Carys nodded at him, somewhat ashamed that he’d seen her little outburst, but glad to have the time to collect herself.  Hawke waited until he was gone, then shook her head at Carys in mock dismay.

“You’re hopeless,” the human woman told her.  

 * * *

The next morning dawned calm and clear.  A servant brought a tray of exotic sliced fruit and sourdough rolls for their breakfast, and Carys had the time to bathe and fix her hair.  She picked through the pile of clothing Felassan had brought her with more care, and put on a tunic she was more certain had been tailored for a woman.  No doubt abandoned on Felassan’s bedroom floor at some point, she thought darkly.  

She was just considering a walk around the grounds to look for Solas and Felassan when someone banged on her door. 

Why bother?  Everyone came to her, it seemed. 

This time, it was Istannis, Felassan, and a number of the other elves from the previous evening. 

“Pack up your things, we’re leaving,” Istannis instructed them.  

Carys looked around the room.  Nothing really belonged to her and Hawke but the clothes on their backs.  She turned back to Istannis and shrugged, lifting her palms.

“Hawke?  Istannis wants to leave now,” she called, more for Istannis’ benefit than Hawke’s. 

Hawke nodded, then turned bird.  Carys wasn’t pleased to see that, since it meant she’d have to carry her.  She sighed, holding out her arm, and Hawke hopped from the back of the couch to Carys.

Istannis was fidgeting and looking nervous.  Felassan, in turn, looked like a cat in cream. 

“What’s going on?” Carys asked as they left the room and began walking quickly through the halls.

“There has been an…incident. Involving Elgar’nan’s champion. Yenar,” Istannis said in low tones. 

At Carys’ blank look, he explained in low tones that Yenar was the champion who defeated Falon’Din’s proxy, thus resolving the territorial dispute that had brought the two Evanuris to the brink of open war. 

“Arrith’s bigger, meaner, older brother.  He’s dead,” Felassan said, not sounding very cut up about it. 

Istannis hissed at him to be quiet, looking around for Elgar’nan’s guards.  None were in sight.  The halls were deserted, save for their group. 

“Elgar’nan is in a rage, and has cancelled the remainder of the festivities,” Istannis explained quietly. 

“What happened?” Carys asked.  “Was there an attack?”

Felassan chortled as they turned more corners and eventually returned to the first eluvian chamber. 

“His slaves found him this morning in his own bathing chamber, cock out, belt around his neck. Should have asked someone else to hold him down and choke him.  He turned out to be not very good at it.”

“Felassan!” Istannis castigated him again. 

They hurried as a knot through the eluvian, emerging in a nondescript stone chamber. 

Istannis urged them forward and down a long hall flanked with windows.  Outside, it was raining.

“It may have been an accident, but it is a blow to the All Father’s pride,” Istannis finally explained. “It’s best to be out of range when that happens.”

Felassan assumed a long and sorrowful face.  “And tonight’s theme was going to be Elgar’nan’s mastery over the beasts of the air,” he sighed.  “I love squab.  Oh well. I’m sure there will be other days, other celebrations of Elgar’nan’s many, many victories.” 

Carys looked around, trying to determine where they were now.  

The place looked more like someone’s house.  The rugs on the floor showed more wear, and the furnishings were more personal. 

Felassan smiled and directed them up two flights of stairs to a long hallway of small bedrooms, identically furnished with double beds and modest wooden furniture.

“Eolas’ estate, just outside of Arlathan,” he told her, once Istannis took his leave.  “The priests are meeting to discuss what, if anything, to do about Elgar’nan.   Falon’Din’s people started leaving as soon as the news spread.    I’ll let you know if anyone decides where to send you two.” 

Carys put Hawke on the foot rail of the bed and left her pile of clothing on the desk.  She went to the window to see if she could see Arlathan, but her window faced the interior of a large courtyard, and she couldn’t see over the next wing of the house.  She stood there, thinking about the morning.

Hawke preened herself with a talon, then hopped to the window, chirping her disappointment at the view. 

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.  “I’d go take a look, but it’s raining.  I hate the smell of wet feathers.  Anders wasn’t fit company for the entire month of Cloudreach.”

Carys absently scratched the feathers at the back of Hawke’s neck, still staring at the cobblestones below them.

“Just that Solas already knew last night that we’d be leaving today,” she told her. 


	10. In Which Solas Has a Proposition

 

Carys found her way into the Fade that night.  Although she must have brushed it in her dreams, her mind had been too disordered by all the strangeness of the world of the Elvhen to make sense of much.  That night, however, she gained awareness of the Fade with enough focus to recognize the great monument and the cast of hundreds for what they were- spirits drawn to the emotions of the wretched slaves and awestruck spectators alike.  The statue loomed over her, its carven features blurring between cruelty and benevolence.  It seemed much larger from Carys’ position; it so dominated the landscape of this patch of the Fade that she seemed to meet its glowing eyes in whichever direction she looked.  

The sky was not the bilious green of Carys’ Fade.  It was a deep, velvet blue-black, unmarred by stars or moons.  Even without a satellite in the sky, though, the world around Carys was illuminated.  The light shone from around her; the spirits, the dreams, and the landscape all glowed.  

Carys was not surprised to see the wolf.  This time, however, instead of watching her or fleeing her approach, he padded to her side, head at the same level as her own.  She’d never been this close to him before, but he was such a familiar figure in her dreams that it seemed very natural to reach out and rest a hand in the thick, coarse fur of his shoulder. 

“Hello Solas,” she said, carding the fur with her fingers.  It was longer than the breadth of her palm, and darker than she remembered. This wolf was almost a uniform dark grey.  He must have added the touches of white around his mouth and chest when he grew to think of himself as old.  This was a young wolf. 

“I wondered when we might meet here,” he replied, sitting back on his haunches.  She would have let her hand fall back to her side, but he ducked his head so that her hand landed on the base of his skull, where the fur was silkier.  She twined her fingers into it.   

“I imagined that any creatures who traveled physically through the Fade would also traverse it in their dreams.  I have not seen your eagle friend, though,” he continued.  

“She was there longer than I was,” Carys replied.  “I think she’s a little leery of going back.” 

“A pity,” Solas said. “I have never met another who so easily slips between forms within the Fade and without.” 

She nodded at him. The legends were not altogether clear on whether Solas was only a wolf in the Fade, but she did not doubt he could change in the physical world if he’d ever wanted to.  It was more likely that he simply preferred to be an elf.  

“Are you a dreamwalker? I looked for you as soon as Lida sent word from the Dragon’s Heart, but the spirits here do not know you.” 

Carys shook her head in negation.  “No, I did not knowingly explore the Fade until I was an adult.  The magic that sent me there was not my own.  If I can focus now, it is only the result of practice.”  

“Interesting,” Solas said, cocking his great, shaggy head to the side as he considered her words.  “So you believe it is no intrinsic ability, but merely a learned skill?”  

“Completely,” Carys agreed. “There is nothing special about me. It is will, not power, that lets us speak here now.” 

“Hmmm,” Solas hummed. His voice was unchanged in his wolven form.  Carys might have been disconcerted by the contrast between the long muzzle full of white teeth and the polished voice had she not been listening to a fish eagle complain in a Fereldan accent for months on. 

He turned his head, leaned forward across her body, and nosed her left hand in its long leather glove. 

“I do not believe that practice alone would allow any of our race to project raw Fade energy into a body,” he said, blinking his yellow eyes up at her curiously. 

Carys huffed in acknowledgement.  “I wasn’t born this way,” she told him. 

His tongue lolled out in a lupine smile.  “Neither was I,” he pointed out.  She tilted her chin in concession.

She looked up at Elgar’nan again.  The spirits were taking turns in slipping their forms into the rock, possessing the statue.  As each tested the vessel, the features of the monument changed.  None were quite the right fit, it seemed, not Vanity, nor Command, nor Terror, nor Dominance.  None would precisely fit the mood of the scene; people in the waking world were many things, and a spirit could be only one. 

“Such a waste,” she muttered.  

“I agree,” Solas said. “The will of thousands at his fingertips, and he spent it on this ugly rock in the middle of nowhere.”  

Her hand stilled on his ruff in surprise.  “That’s not what I meant,” she said.  “I meant the people.” 

“The slaves?” Solas asked, taken aback.  “What more would have been expected from a horde of wretches with the misfortune to be dedicated to the All-Father?” 

“Well, anything!” she responded with a bit of heat.  “They’re just like you and me, Solas.” 

He snorted.  “Are you, and me, and those thousands of slaves all in the same category?”

That went right to the heart of it, didn’t it.  When she knew him, thousands of years later, he felt the same way.  

“I suppose that is what I am here to determine,” she said slowly. “You may find out around the same time I do.” 

“Why _did_ you come to this world?” he asked curiously, thrusting his head against her hand until she resumed stroking his fur.  “The wars that established Elvhenan are long past, if you wished to observe us build our empire.”

“I want to stop a war, not win one,” she corrected him.  “I’ve seen enough of them to know that wars are not really won.  When they’re over, we call the living the victors.  But if that means the other side must die, I can’t stand the cost of victory.” 

“You sound like Mythal,” Solas said fondly.  “Perhaps you may gain something from the accounts of her victories in the Vir Dirthara. It is commendable that you seek a non-violent solution to your world’s crisis.  That has always been her preference as well.”

Carys hoped he was right. Nothing about the Mythal she met in the Fade was non-violent or awe-inspiring.  But she imagined Mythal was as much reduced and maddened by the passage of time as Corypheus had been.  She feared Solas was the same. 

“To that end, I must unfortunately depart tomorrow on a diplomatic mission.  But I promise that I will take you to the Vir Dirthara when I return,” he said casually.  

“A diplomatic mission?” Carys repeated. 

Solas had many fine qualities, both in this day and her own.  He was brilliant, incisive, handsome, and funnier than people thought. He was curious about new people, and spoke every language she’d come across.  He was even polite, usually.  But these qualities did not add up to ‘diplomatic.’ 

Diplomacy required tact. A willingness to maintain certain useful social fictions.  ‘Niceness,’ as Leliana disdained it.  

Carys dimly remembered Solas provoking Gatt en route to the disastrous battle against the Venatori. The man had been a miserable zealot. But a potential ally at a time when the Inquisition had been short of support.  What had Solas called him?  A “mindless drone?”  

If Mythal was sending Solas on a diplomatic mission, she did not know Solas as well as Carys did.

Something in her tone must have betrayed her doubts, because Solas stiffened and told her that he was the only person in Elvhenan capable of treating with the Enemy.

“Who are the Enemy?” Carys asked.  “And how do you know them?” 

Solas’ response was a long deflection that conveyed a great deal of information and failed to really answer her question.  She supposed that was not a learned skill but a native ability of his.  She cut him off- a skill, not an ability, and one she was only beginning to develop. 

“May Hawke and I go with you?  I’d like to see for myself,” Carys interjected.

Solas considered that while slowly climbing to his feet. 

“I am reluctant to agree, although I admit the experience will be illuminating.  It will involve several weeks of hard travel, danger, and possible combat,” he warned her. 

“Oh, I’m sure Hawke and I will manage,” Carys said mildly. 

* * *  

Carys rose well-rested and at peace with herself the next morning.  Her conversation in the Fade with Solas felt like the start of something: an opening in a dialogue that might allow her to change his heart and open his mind to the embrace of all thinking beings as imbued with a value outside of their potential. 

By the time she and Hawke were dressed and ready to leave, Solas and Felassan had already assembled their traveling party in the house’s courtyard.  Carys was pleased to see Lida, along with several Sentinels.  All of them were dressed in that close-fitting golden armor, shining in the bright sunlight.  Solas wore the same.  He was already astride a white halla, and the wind caught his hair where a few strands had come loose from his many plaits.  He was so beautiful it made her chest ache and her throat close up. 

Hawke interrupted her reverie.

“Where are the supplies?” she whispered. 

Carys startled and looked around.  The halla had slim leather saddlebags, but Carys didn’t see any set aside for carrying larger packs. 

She sidled up next to Felassan.  

“Are we going to be spending the nights in ready-made camps?” she asked. 

No, he said proudly. This was a secret mission.  They couldn’t travel through eluvians.  They would need to make their way to the territory of the Enemy relying on their wits alone. 

(“It’s a secret mission where everyone wears matching gold armor?” Hawke whispered again.

“It’s a secret mission where the talking fish eagle gets to come along,” Carys whispered back.”)  

Carys took a longer look at the small group of warriors.

“Where are the tents?” 

It was late spring, Felassan told her.  The weather was mild.  They would sleep outside. 

“And if it rains?” Carys asked.

Felassan frowned.  He would use a spell to keep the rain off them, he said, less confidently.

“And if it rains for days?”

Perhaps tents would be a good idea, Felassan allowed.

“And the food?”  Carys asked.

He anticipated living off the land.  He had salt and spices, and a book about edible plants.

Carys looked at the armored elves, more pointedly this time. 

“A group this size will need to spend about six hours a day foraging and hunting if we’re to maintain ourselves.  That doesn’t leave much time for travel,” she pointed out. 

Surely not, Felassan pushed back.  One deer would feed the entire group.

“This time of the year, they’ll all be winter-thin, if you can even find one.  We should carry preserved food.”  

Felassan was beginning to look at her with a bit of panic.

“Did Solas put you in charge of packing?”  Carys asked, voice low. 

He nodded tightly. 

“He doesn’t know how to requisition for a long trip either?” Carys verified. 

Felassan shook his head.

Carys sighed, and started issuing orders.  Carys knew she had many personal failings, and her confidence was not high in this world of musicians and poets and masters of complex and subtle magic.  But if there was one thing she knew she was capable of, it was organizing groups of elves to tramp across the backcountry. Not just elves, when she thought back to her time in the Inquisition.  She was fairly certain she could be suffering from major trauma and would nonetheless manage to pack extra socks and fruit leather. 

Solas’ face was bemused as he watched her scratch out lists of supplies and dispatch Felassan and Eolas’ servants.  When she buckled a large pack behind him on his halla, he obligingly leaned forward so she could secure the straps.  When she ordered Hawke onto a halla, his lips quirked in a smile.  When she interrogated Felassan about spare clothing, he smothered a laugh.  And when she, much later, climbed onto her own halla and settled her legs around its flanks, he looked at her with his eyes warm and full of laughter. 

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“ _We_ are ready to leave now,” she said calmly. 

He nodded his head, as though he he’d never planned to leave without packing sufficient supplies for a summer picnic in the first place. 

When they left Eolas’ house, Carys craned her neck for a glimpse of Arlathan.  There were tall cypresses in the way, but she could just catch a glimpse of golden spires peeking over the treetops.  That was disappointing.  

But she wasn’t there as a tourist.  She could see Arlathan another time.

“I think he was just a _little_ bit turned on when you started bossing him around,” Hawke stage-whispered, bringing her halla up alongside Carys. 

“Hawke,” Carys warned her, careful to keep her eyes fixed on the road ahead. 

“What?  I’m just pointing out, he works for Mythal. Clearly he doesn’t mind a woman who gives him _lots_ of direction,” Hawke teased her. 

“Hawke!”  Carys objected again. 

Solas glanced back at her. He was letting his halla lead, and if he was trying to head west, he was doing it all wrong.  His halla would pick the route that had the most vegetation, not the quickest one. 

Carys decided to give him one day of getting struck in the face by the underbrush before she took over. She didn’t even know where they were going, and she was certain she could get there faster than Solas. 

Carys had to politely inquire an hour before dark where they were stopping for the evening. 

Solas, equally polite, asked whether she had thoughts on the subject. 

Hawke smothered another snort. 

Carys found them a campsite. Then told them how to set up their tents.  And take care of their halla.  And cook their dinner. 

Lida’s face evidenced some amount of suspicion, but Felassan grabbed her hand and kissed it with gratitude after she tied his tent down for him.  And Solas was nothing but courtly gentility when Carys handed him a bowl of stew. 

“You have done this before,” he said, once they were all seated around the fire.

(Felassan if nothing else was good at starting fires). 

There was a question implied in that statement, but Carys needed to be cautious how much of her world she explained. 

“Yes,” she admitted. “My people did not travel by eluvian, or even by road.  I wandered most of my life.” 

“No wonder you’re so much better at this than we are,” Felassan pointed out. 

“Why did you travel?” Solas asked.

“We searched for old knowledge.  Secrets. Artifacts,” Carys said.  And that was true, though more often Clan Lavellan had been looking for nothing more compelling than fatter game and safer territory. 

Solas nodded.  “I understand.  I suppose searching the Fade involves far less woodcraft.” 

The next several weeks they traveled north and west, and Solas gradually ceded most of the day-to-day decision-making to her.  It felt very natural to travel next to him and carry out the routine chores of making and breaking camp by his side.  He was so close to the man she remembered.  She could forget, sometimes, when he was telling her stories, that they were not in the Inquisition, and that he was not a homeless apostate.  When she looked into the fire at night, she imagined she could turn her head and see Blackwall coming up with another armful of lumber, or Cassandra oiling her sword.  But it wasn’t lonely, traveling with Solas, Felassan, Hawke, and the other elves.  It was wonderful.  Felassan played the flute in the evening, and Lida practiced some kind of unarmed combat. Hawke had somewhere acquired a set of dice and a pack of playing cards, and taught Solas a number of different games, all of which Hawke ended up losing.  This, if Carys were to confess her most treasured daydreams, was what she wanted.  It would be so easy to let go of her mission and just be by his side.  

They skirted all signs of civilization and traveled alone through Elvhenan.  They could see smokestacks on the horizon, or breaks in the trees denoting fields or orchards, but encountered no other thinking beings on their trek.  One morning, however, Solas woke up and announced that they had come to the edge of Mythal’s territory.  Taking some kind of direction from his dreams, he took point again and led them to a squat stone fortress nearly concealed by a thick forest of pine trees. 

He left the group behind some hundred paces from the front gates, and knocked on the great wooden door alone.  When it opened, he slipped inside. 

After a half hour, during which stretch of time Felassan did not cease tapping his foot, the doors were opened more widely.  The group hobbled their halla and shuffled in with some trepidation, taking their cue from Felassan.

The door was held open by a bare-faced woman in simple clothing.  She eyed their armor with suspicion, but made no comment of either welcome or rejection.

In the dark, barely-furnished foyer, Solas was speaking with a man in black robes.  When the man turned, their group paused as one at the sight of his red vallaslin.  

“The priests of Anaris have offered us shelter tonight,” Solas informed them.  “I, for one, am looking forward to a bath and a meal Carys has not boiled for me.”  He smiled to take the sting out of his words. 

Carys tried to guard her expression from Anaris’ priest, who was in any event looking more closely at Hawke than Carys.  Hawke brushed her hair forward over the tips of her ears and tried to look harmless. Unsuccessfully. 

“As you suggest,” Carys told Solas lightly. 

The fortress or temple was lightly populated. There were no representations of the Forgotten god, and Carys could see no signs of worship or other activity as the woman from the entrance led them to the baths.  After washing herself and several pieces of her clothing, Carys changed into her last clean tunic and walked back to the main hall, where a simple meal of cheese, cold meat, and flatbread was laid out along a series of tables spanning the room. 

At Solas’ gesture, she took the chair next to him, at the far end of the grouping from Anaris’ priest. 

Carys tried to draw out the reason why they were the guests of the Forgotten Ones, but Solas deflected her as adroitly as he’d ever done. 

Was this their destination? 

Solas had seen many fascinating temples past the boundaries of Elvhenan, but Geldauran’s were the most unique. . .

Was their business with Anaris?

Mythal’s wisdom once allowed her to resolve a conflict between Anaris and Andruil over the hunting of white foxes in the far south. . .

How did Solas know the priests of Anaris?

Solas asked her whether she would care to join him after their meal in his chambers.

Carys was certain she had misunderstood him, and took a long draught of her wine to cover her flush. 

“Why?” she asked, to clarify. 

Solas’ eyelashes were darker than his eyebrows, and they obscured his pale blue eyes when he looked up at her over his own goblet of wine. 

“Because this is the first time I have been clean in weeks, and we have several free hours this evening…” his voice trailed off as he saw her confusion. 

It could take _hours_?

“I mean why…with me,” she responded, still flustered. 

Solas tilted his head in concern.  His long hair was combed out and hung in damp waves over his shoulder. 

“Because you are lovely, and new, and I want to see what your hair looks like when it is down and loose,” he said, face calm and open.  He clearly did not expect her reaction, and said more slowly, “I have seen the way you look at me.  Was I mistaken?”  His tone said that he did not expect that he was mistaken.  Carys supposed he wasn’t turned down very often.

She looked down the table at Hawke and Felassan, as though they would rescue her from this conversation, but Hawke was repeating a thickly-accented but recognizably obscene Elvhen phrase to a scandalized Lida, and Felassan was well on the way to drunk on the dark red wine provided for the table. 

Solas followed her gaze to Felassan and misunderstood her further. 

“Ah, Felassan?” he asked, brow furrowing faintly.  “He generally prefers the company of men, but if that is where your interest lies, I am certain he would join us if I asked.  You might want to intercept that last glass of wine, though.”  

“Now you’re just teasing me,” Carys accused him.  

“No?” Solas said, lips quirking up a bit.  “Perhaps. Though I spoke nothing but the truth. Tell me why not, then.”

Carys gritted her jaw.  Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth. 

“That…that.  It means something to my people.  Commitment.  Love.” 

She shifted in her chair in discomfort, and stared into the dregs of her wine cup. 

“I see,” Solas said slowly, as though this was a new and troublesome concept.  “But we are not in your world.  We are scarcely in mine.” 

He pointedly looked up at a chandelier holding wax candles overhead.  Carys had not noticed, but the arms of the candelabras were constructed of bone.  She looked more closely.  Rib bones. Possibly humanoid rib bones.  Oh, the Forgotten Ones were going to be lovely hosts. 

Solas was still looking at her expectantly.  He seemed to think luring her back to his chambers was only a matter of demonstrating a sound logical argument for it.  But logic had never factored into her doomed love affair with the man he would some day become.  Not on her part, in any event. 

“It would mean something to me,” she told him, and excused herself from the table without meeting his eyes again. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you imagine how disappointed Hawke would be in Carys?
> 
> "He wanted to spit-roast you with his best friend and you turned him down? I just can't support your decision making."


	11. In Which Lavellan Is On Her Best Manners

She touches the Fade again that night in her dreams.  This memory is older.  Her clan is exploring a ruin that her Keeper tentatively identifies as a temple of Sylaise. The spring’s rains have washed out the halls and exposed bits of their history in the soft mud.  Carys is younger, and whole, and digging on her knees in the dirt, clad in her oldest clothes.  Her hair is bundled up in a slapdash cluster of braids.  She has mosquito bites and acne and a smear of mud on her cheek.  She is happy. She has found a little shiny something in the dirt.  When she wipes it with the corner of her tunic, she sees that it is a buckle, still unbroken and shiny after thousands of years.  It has a pattern of oak leaves in copper and gold filigree on silver, and it is not tarnished despite its burial, so she knows that it must be ancient. Keeper Deshanna let her present it with great ceremony as a nameday gift to Hahren Ghailnair.  He wore it the day she left for the Conclave, his lined face worried and drooping.  

Carys was both caught in the memory and aware of it.  The buckle in her dirty fingers faded when she looked up through the ruins and spied the wolf watching her from a distant archway.

He turned to leave, but she scrambled to her feet.

“Solas!” she called, and he paused.

She made quick strides to his side. 

“Solas,” she scolded him when she reached him.  “If you have time to spy on my dreams, you have time to answer my questions.”

He did not answer, but made no move to flee.  She found a convenient cluster of ancient blocks and sat down, patting the space next to her.  He slowly padded to her side. 

“You should tell me what you want from Anaris,” she said.  “I might be able to help.  Or at least not blow your cover.” 

“Anaris,” he said slowly, speaking for the first time in this dream. 

“Yes, I thought Mythal was at war with him?  Do you have some kind of separate peace?  This mission can’t be too covert when you and Felassan and Lida can walk in the front door wearing Mythal’s vallaslin,” she pointed out. 

Solas tilted his head and considered her.  His eyes were as golden as Mythal’s in this form.  There was another long pause before he spoke.

“I could not understand the shape of events,” he said.  “Falon’Din and Andruil were gaining power without gaining followers.  The Enemy were attacking Mythal’s holdings, but not the other Evanuris’.  Falon’Din took his champion’s defeat at the hands of Elgar’nan’s too readily.  Worse, the spirits could not tell me why. Whatever Mythal’s rivals planned, they had somehow hidden it from watchers in the Fade.  So I thought to treat with Anaris, who I had known since before I was flesh.”  

Carys was puzzled by his manner of speaking.  He told it all so plainly, and as though it had happened a long time ago.  

The light was not good inside the temple, but when she inspected Solas more closely, she saw patches of lighter grey fur around his muzzle and belly.  This was not the young wolf.  This was Fen’Harel.  

“Solas,” she said, winding her hand into the fur of his ruff in the hope that he would not leave, “Where are you?  And when?” 

He was not leaving. He laid his muzzle on her knee and blinked up at her.

“I am in the Free Marches, as you see here.  And we parted in the ruins of Haven six months past.”  

Carys looked up at the ceiling, spying at last the swirling green of the Veil through the cracks in the stone. 

“The Fade exists in all times and places,” she repeated.  

“Indeed, vhenan,” he said. “I did not consider this possibility, though.  The implications are…intriguing.”  

“You’re telling me,” she muttered.  “I just spoke to you- a much younger you- before I went to bed.  You tried to join me there,” she accused him. 

He heaved a sigh that was as dry as bone.  “Of course I did.”

His tone was so regretful that Carys couldn’t help but laugh.

“You don’t remember? Did I fail to make an impression on you?” 

“I met you the day you fell out of the Fade in the Temple of Sacred Ashes,” he told her.  “I would never forget you.“ 

Carys tapped her lower lip as she considered that. 

“So what I do in that time does not affect yours?  How can that be?” she asked.

“Time is not a straight line, as you discovered in Redcliffe.  It branches like a tree.  Whatever you do- will do- it affects some different future from this one,” he decided. 

Carys reached out and touched his head, running her fingers along the soft fur on the side of his face, his ears.  He closed his many eyes and rumbled deep in his throat.  He let her touch him in this form, as he never did before.  No hands tucked behind his back, no shoulders blocking her approach.

“But you’re the one I want to save,” she whispered. 

As beautiful as Pride was, she wanted to save the quiet, cautious man who had saved her own life so many times, who kissed her against his better judgment, who looked at her as if he were drowning and she were a distant island. 

“I am beyond your help,” he said gently.  “But I appreciate the thought.” 

She would never accept that. She continued to gently run her hands through his fur.  She did not want this dream to end. 

“So, should I then?” she said hesitantly. 

He cracked his eyes open under her ministrations. 

“Do what?” he mumbled. 

She didn’t answer, but her blush disclosed her meaning when he opened his eyes again. 

“I never had any complaints,” he said, and although his expression was hard to read in this form, she thought he was smiling. 

She flicked the tip of his ear in retribution. 

“Would it make a difference, I meant.” 

He huffed out a long breath through his nose.  His head was heavy on her knee.  

“Only if you want to, vhenan. I was never one for pillow talk, if that is your goal.  I cannot say.  It did not happen that way, after all.  I never met anyone like you.  If I had…”

His voice trailed off.  

“I still cannot perceive any better path.  But perhaps you will." 

His voice sounded so lost that that Carys leaned over to press her face against the top of his head. Her eyes were hot and tight.   She wrapped her arms around his neck.  He was the size of a cave bear in this place, and felt heavy and reassuring in her arms.

He let her hold him until she woke up, for the first time ever. 

 * * * 

They ate a cold breakfast under the silent gaze of Anaris’ servants, who then led them to an eluvian chamber.

“The Enemies have eluvians?” Carys asked Felassan.

“Of course they do. How else would they travel around the outskirts of Elvhenan, doing their unspeakable deeds?”

As usual, Felassan was bright-eyed and cheerful for all his indulgence the night before.  Carys suspected that he had some kind of mystical hangover cure, lost to the ages.  Of all the Dalish had forgotten, she wondered how _that_ had not been preserved. 

“The network used by the Evanuris does not intersect those used by the Enemies,” Solas explained. 

Carys looked at him out of the corner of her eye.  She hadn’t yet spoken to him this morning, but he could not resist explaining things to her- in this time, or any other.  His expression was bland and casual.  She supposed that if he really was sleeping his way across Elvhenan, he couldn’t afford to be awkward about either his successes or failures on the morning after. 

There was no ceremony as they were ushered through the mirror.  They spilled out in a rough stone enclosure.  The air was dry and clean. 

They stepped eagerly out into a mountain scene: a vast, cobbled courtyard before a large stone town carved directly into a cliff face.   The structures were simple and utilitarian in design, but pleasing in their arrangement.  She saw many small windows cut into the stone to suggest habitations; many were cupped by window boxes trailing long veils of dangling vines bearing red blossoms.  

The sun was behind the mountain, leaving them and the courtyard in shadow.  Carys saw elves moving between houses and structures carrying tools of their trades.  Some climbed ladders to the top of the cliff carrying farming implements.  Smoke emerged from copper pipes spouting from ceilings and walls.  Off to one side, a waterfall fell off the top of the cliff, caught by an enormous waterwheel. Carys was silent in the study of these elves, living differently than all others she had yet observed, and failed to notice the lone figure awaiting them. 

Like his servants, he was clad in uniform black robes.  His face was concealed by a helmet formed in the shape of a deer’s skull.  Sharp, bone-white antlers crowned his head. 

“Anaris,” Solas said grandly.  He opened his arms and walked towards the dark figure. 

The man in antlers did not quite return Solas’ embrace, but he did not reject it either. 

“Hello, old friend,” Anaris said, his tone cool and crisp.  “What brings you in the company of so many of Mythal’s servants on this much-delayed visit?”

“Straight to business, falon?  Can I not simply be here to discuss the intricacies of the Fade, the way we used to?” Solas said playfully.

Carys suppressed a snort.

“You could, but you are not,” Anaris grumbled.  “I suppose you are all staying.” 

“Only because your hospitality is legendary,” Solas told him.  

Anaris nodded to his left. There was a neat stack of skulls serving as a cairn to mark a path up the cliff. 

“The last guests sent by the Evanuris,” he noted. 

“He’s fun,” Hawke whispered. 

Solas was undeterred. “I am certain we will make better houseguests.   And that reminds me.” 

He gestured at one of Lida’s retainers, who brought forward a leather knapsack.  Rustling inside it, he drew out a human skull, polished and carved with runic designs. 

He tossed it to Anaris, who snatched it from the air adroitly.  Anaris examined it for a brief moment, then rolled it between his hands. 

“Thank you for the gift, but you will see I already have several of my own,” he said, sweeping his arms out.  

Now that Carys had a reason to look closer, she saw that the fences were adorned with femurs, and the cobblestones appeared to be composed of skullcaps. 

“Not like this,” Solas said. “Do you recall Elgar’nan’s gardener, Branar?”

Anaris nodded. 

“Ghilan’nain blighted his kitchen garden just before a visit by Sylaise.  Elgar’nan had Branar dismembered.”

“Ah, a happy accident for me, then,” Anaris said, studying the skull again.  He tucked it under his arm.

“This is not the best time,” he warned Solas in a lower voice, gesturing at him to follow, and sweeping his robes as he turned. 

“I know, but that is why I had to come now,” Solas said, his voice growing fainter as the pair of them disappeared into the cliff-face complex.

Their group were left adrift in the courtyard.  Carys daintily lifted one foot off the gorund.  She did not want to walk on the skulls.  

Hawke had no such compunctions.  She strode forward, looking around herself with interest. 

“Love what he’s done with the place,” she said, turning and putting her hands on her hips.  “I always just buried my enemies, but I see now that I missed huge opportunities with home décor.”  

Anaris’ people largely ignored them as they milled about, and it was at least an hour before a harried young woman without vallaslin emerged from a different building, and led them to a barracks-like room in the center of the complex.  There were bunks sufficient for their group, but Felassan, at least, seemed insulted by the quarters they had been provided.  He put his pack on the floor, but made no move to start stowing his belongings in the chests and dressers around the room. Taking a cue from him, the others sat down to await further developments. 

Solas returned not long after that, his attitude much changed. 

He whispered to Lida in the corner, and her face grew stormy.

“We should go,” she said. 

“What’s that?” Felassan said, perking up from the book he’d been reading. 

Solas shook his head. “It is not what we expected, but it may be an opportunity nonetheless.  We cannot simply go back empty-handed.”

Hawke shot Carys a questioning glance, the conversation evidently overwhelming her emerging grasp of Elvhen, but Carys shook her head.  She didn’t understand what was being discussed either.

Solas crossed his arms across his chest, shooting Lida a defiant look.  His gaze slowly shifted to Carys and Hawke.  His eyes narrowed.

“You two, you saw something of our history in the Fade?” 

Carys nodded.

“Did you learn anything of Daern’thal?” 

Carys licked her lips. “The god who died in flame, and was reborn,” she said.  “The god of spite.”

“Not very helpful,” Solas derided them.  “Well, do you think you can keep a civil discourse with him over dinner?” he asked Carys and Hawke.

Carys looked around the room. 

“Just us?” she said. 

Solas grimaced. “Anaris is entertaining his ‘cousin,’ and most of the guest quarters are already occupied by Daern’thal’s people. For reasons that will become obvious immediately upon meeting him, Daern’thal is particularly ill-disposed towards Mythal’s people.  I dare not bring any others bearing her vallaslin with me, but I must speak with Anaris.”

“Can’t we just wait until Daern’thal is gone?” Carys asked. 

Solas pulled his mouth to the side in displeasure.  “This is a long-planned visit, I gathered.  It will likely continue some years.  It only commenced last month.”  

Carys was continually reminded of her mortality in this world. 

She took a deep breath. “What do you want me and Hawke to do?” she asked.

He looked unhappy. “Distract him, if possible.  Do you know any interesting stories?  Can you sing?  Just keep the man amused while I attempt to gather something useful from Anaris.”  

Carys looked helplessly at Hawke. 

“Can you sing?” she asked her. 

Hawke looked doubtful. “Bawdy tavern melodies from the Hanged Man,” she said.  “Do you think he wants to hear ‘There Once Was a Lad from Qarinus?’”

Solas pressed two fingers against his forehead and closed his eyes.  “Maybe I can get you two some nicer clothes.” 

“I can make small talk with anyone,” she tried to reassure Solas.  “So can Hawke.  We may not look it, but I promise that each of us has had to negotiate with some very strange characters.” 

After additional discussion with Felassan (who was more amused by the process than anything else) and Lida (who still counseled a hasty withdrawal), Felassan was dispatched to coax appropriate attire from Anaris’ servants, and Carys and Hawke got a crash course in Elvhen diplomacy from Lida. 

“How does Solas know Anaris?” she asked Lida. 

“From before Mythal called him to this body, I suppose,” Lida answered.  “I didn’t hear anything about it at the time. Pride certainly accompanied us to several battles against the Enemies.  But he’s always had odd friends.”  

Her gaze swept in not just Felassan but Carys and Hawke as well. 

* * * 

Carys had not had occasion to wear a ballgown before. 

Clan Lavellan owned several fine ceremonial robes, one of which she’d worn for her investiture as Second, and then again to become First.  It had long, dagged sleeves and fine embroidery in copper thread.  Between ceremonies, it was carefully packed away in cedar in the back of the Keeper’s aravel.  

As Inquisitor, she’d worn a dress uniform to state occasions, and armor at less formal ones. Otherwise, she’d preferred the same hard-wearing wool and leather she’d worn while traveling with her clan. 

The garment Felassan returned with was altogether different. 

For one thing, it required the assistance of two of Lida’s retainers to put on.  They were both greatly displeased to serve as maidservants, but Carys had taken one long look at what was passing for a bodice on the gown and sent Felassan from the room.  The skirts were unobjectionable: voluminous waves of stiff, dark red silk. But the bodice was a high necked, sleeveless piece of fine, transparent ivory gauze, barely obscuring certain critical pieces of her anatomy with a diagonal spray of red and blue blossoms in embroidered appliques. 

Even once the blossoms were properly secured and placed, Carys felt naked above the waist.  So she combed out her hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders and back.  That somehow made her feel more exposed.  She never wore her hair down.  It wasn’t practical, for one.  For a second matter, she knew it was beautiful.  It was thick and white and fell almost all the way down her back. But she had a strong belief that the remainder of her features failed to live up to the hair.  Her figure was straight and utilitarian, even for an elf, and her eyes were an unremarkable shade of iron-grey. Knotting her hair back in a businesslike fashion, she believed, reminded others to focus on her purpose and role, not her appearance.  She did not wish to be judged favorably for her hair if her features and figure were not going to pass muster.  All of it- her hair, her face, and her body- were sufficient to serve her purpose. That should have been enough. 

But once her hair was down and brushed out, Felassan had already seen it and dramatically faked a swoon. He would not hear of her putting it up again.  She was about to don her long gloves instead, but he took them from her hand. 

“No, no, let’s leave you as interesting as possible.  Nobody else has a hand made directly out of the Fade, and if Daern’thal is trying to figure out how you did it, he won’t be paying attention to Pride.” 

He clasped her faintly luminescent green hand in his own and dragged her out of the closet she had repurposed as a dressing room and back into the barracks.  

Hawke was still clad in her spiky, fur-lined armor and mantle.  She let out a long, low whistle when she saw Carys. 

“You clean up better than I do, that’s certain.  I offered to put on a dress, but your elf said I’m perfect the way I am.”   She shrugged.  “At least this way I can tell the story of how I cut this armor out of the belly of a dragon.  True story, actually!”  

“I know,” Carys smiled. “Varric told it.  A few times.”  

Solas reappeared, wearing an ornate, fur-trimmed tunic, despite the late-spring weather.  It was still less flashy than the other things she’d seen him wear.  She supposed he was trying to tone it down for this dinner. 

He looked Carys up and down, his gaze lingering on her long hair.  Remembering his comments the previous evening, she blushed, even though it had been possibly the most artless proposition she had received since leaving her clan.  Even, “you want to ride the Bull?” had a more direct charm to it. 

“This is idiocy, Pride,” Lida said, her blocky figure partially barring the door.  “You’ll be dead before the dessert course, and then I’ll have to carve our way out of here.”

“You say that as though you wouldn’t enjoy that,” Felassan said lightly.

Lida frowned.  “Why do you all keep harping on my supposed bloodthirstiness.  I’ve barely killed anyone since I became Keeper.  You kill far more people than I do, and nobody makes jests at your expense.” 

“Oh, you have not been listening well enough if you have not heard the jokes about Felassan,” Solas said, reaching out and taking Carys’ arm under his own.  She suppressed a jerk of surprise as she realized he intended to lead her in to dinner like some kind of noble lady.  He offered his other arm to Hawke with the same courtly gesture, but she just laughed in his face and shoved him toward the door. 

* * * 

Anaris’ dining chamber was more intimate than Carys expected. 

It was a circular, high-ceilinged room adorned with frescoes of a mountain sunrise.  The air was close and stuffy inside; there were no windows, only skylights high above.  The only table in the room was circular, with a cutout for access to a large brazier of coals in the center of the table.  The table was surrounded by four sturdy, low-backed wooden chairs.  

Anaris was already in the room, speaking to another elven man.  Their backs were to Carys when they entered, so her first impression of the man was of his shining, light brown hair loose around his shoulders.  His long-sleeved tunic was dark-orange drakeskin over buff leather leggings. 

When he turned at Carys’ approach, however, she saw that half his face was distorted by severe burns, with the skin pulled and pitted nearly to the bone along his jaw.  One eye was clear and green, the other was a cloudy, mottled dark blue.  Both moved over the three figures who entered. 

Solas bowed from the waist, and Hawke and Carys did their best to copy him. 

“My lords Anaris and Daern’thal,” he murmured.  “Allow me to introduce Marian Hawke and Carys Lavellan, visitors to Elvhenan.” 

“Visitors?” Daern’thal asked, his voice rough and grating, like the creaking of a disused gate. “How unexpected.  And these are so lovely.”

Hawke, of course, had no compunctions about stepping forward and offering him her mailed fist as though she were dressed in velvet and silk.  He dutifully clasped and kissed it.  

With that example, Carys could hardly fail to do the same.  His lips were hot and dry on her wrist.  She noted that he tucked back his hair behind his misshapen ear, but let it fall forward across the unmarred part of his face.  

Daern’thal kept custody of her hand as he led her to the table and pulled out her chair.  

Anaris was still clad in the unadorned black robes and deer-skull helmet, and he wordlessly trailed after them to the seat to Daern’thal’s opposite side. 

This left one chair; she wondered which of the Enemies had orchestrated this petty little provocation.

“Oh dear,” said Daern’thal. “I suppose your company will be missed, Pride.  Or perhaps you will not mind standing?”

“Not a problem,” said Hawke. “We’ll share.”  

In a shimmering blur, she changed form and flapped to the back of the remaining chair.  Both Anaris and Daern’thal startled back from the wind created by her wide wings.  

Anaris gave a dry kind of a chuckle, finally removing his helmet.  His face, once revealed, was long and pale, but dominated by morose, dark eyes.  He placed his deer-skull helmet on the floor by his chair.  

“Astonishing,” he said to Hawke.  “Are you a fish eagle?”

“Is every elf in this place a fucking ornithologist?” Hawke griped in Common.  

“It’s a matter of some debate,” Carys translated. 

Solas, nonchalant, took his chair, running one finger along Hawke’s primaries in appreciation.  

As if waiting for that signal, Anaris’ servants swept in to offer finger bowls of water for washing and fill sturdy glass goblets with wine. 

Another servant brought a slim tray of stone to Anaris. 

“Pride, do you still remember our rituals?” he asked.  “Would you care to do the honors?”

“Of course,” Solas said smoothly, accepting the platter.  He stood. 

He thanked the sun, water, and soil for growing his food.  He thanked the elements for not slaying him before he could eat. And he offered his blood as a sacrifice for the host’s hospitality, nicking his finger and letting a single drop of blood fall into a small bowl, in which a pinch of dirt was dissolved water.  Then he conjured a flame, boiling the small cup until it was dry.  He then handed the trey off and resumed his seat.

Daern’thal seemed impressed. 

“I would not expect one of the Evanuris to remember the old ways,” he said.

“I am older than the Evanuris,” Solas said.  “And I am not one of them.”  

Daern’thal tilted his glass to Solas in acknowledgement.

There was a lull in conversation while servants brought fresh fish and vegetables wrapped in wide leaves and placed them on the coals to steam. 

Carys searched her mind for some topic of conversation that would allow her to divert Daern’thal’s attention.

“So, what happened to your face?” Hawke asked. 

Her Elvhen was still heavily accented, but better grammatically (and unfortunately, in this particular situation) than Carys would have expected.

Solas’ expression curdled in the corner of Carys’ vision.

Daern’thal leaned forward and grinned viciously.

“I was burned by a dragon,” he said.  

“No shit,” said Hawke. “Me too.  You’ll have to see me without the feathers.  I have one burn down the back of my leg, and another right on my ass.  That was the big girl I took that armor from.” 

“You slew your dragon?” Anaris asked, eyebrows rising.  

“Oh yeah.  It took all day.  It had dozens of little babies that were nipping my heels to hell the whole time. I was covered in so much blood even my dog didn’t recognize me.  But went she finally went down, we cut her open and it was like my naming day in there. Armor, treasure, new knives- the works. She must have eaten some really fancy people.”

Daern’thal nodded in enjoyment of the tale. 

“There is nothing like a good dragonslaying.  My dragon, alas, got away.  I hope to find her another day.”  He smiled widely, showing many sharp teeth.  His canines appeared to have been filed down to points. 

Solas busied himself in picking bones out of a piece of fish. 

Waves of attendants brought courses out, placing and replacing the small plates.  All of their food was cooked in front of them on the glowing coals. 

Carys delicately asked Anaris about the gardener’s skull that had formed Solas’ guest-gift. 

“Do you have an interest in botany, my lord?”

That subject proved to be the key to getting Anaris talking.  He described his innovations in agriculture in botany in extensive, mind-numbing detail.  But rather despite herself, Carys’ attitude towards the man softened.  If he increased the yield and drought-resistance of his pulse crops, surely that could only benefit the people who lived in his lands.  And Anaris was sincere, even self-effacing as he talked about the subject.  

Daern’thal was quiet as Anaris and Carys spoke, watching Solas. Solas’ carriage was ever upright and unconcerned as they worked their way through the dinner.  When their attendants cleared a cold course of shredded vegetables in vinegar, however, and returned with small servings of meat, he laid his arm across the back of Carys’ chair.  

He slowly leaned into her. Carys tried not to be affected by his closeness, and continued her discussion of Anaris’ plans for new drainage canals in his southern holdings. 

The servants charred the steaks on the coals before returning them to their plates.  Solas stretched out his neck until his lips nearly brushed the line of Carys’ sensitive ear.  

“Do not eat the meat,” he barely breathed.  Then he nipped her ear lobe.  When she turned away from Anaris to stare at Solas, she saw the briefest flash of emotion across his face, quickly smothered by his former expression of languid arrogance.  

Daern’thal was adroitly carving his steak, but did not miss the interaction. 

“Why do I never receive pretty little visitors like that?” he complained, indicating Carys. 

Anaris placidly cut his own meat as he responded.  “I suppose it is your conversation, lethallin.  You have not added anything of use to the discussion all evening.”  

Daern’thal’s eyes flashed in annoyance.  “And why should I,” he growled.  “I don’t give two shits about your plants or your earthenworks.  And neither does Pride.” 

“I know that not to be true,” Anaris responded, while Solas watched the exchange with hooded eyes. “He spent many hours discussing such things with me before he left the Dreaming.  He advised me on the design of this very complex.” 

Daern’thal snorted rudely. “And you know he is not back here in the flesh to discuss that.  He wants to know why the Evanuris’ lead bitch is limping like a lame hound while her whelps get fiercer and fatter.  Aren’t you, Pride?  You’re here to beg this old man for scraps like a kitchen dog at the table.”

“You sound as though you know all about it,” Solas said lazily.  “Do enlighten me, god of spite.” 

Daern’thal tossed his head back and laughed.  “I know better than to give something for nothing, you dog.  You’ll have to win it from me fairly like a true Elvhen, not wheedle it out like a wretch.” 

Solas leaned across the table toward him, his face growing intent.

“Is that a challenge, Daern’thal?  I would never sully our host’s home with bloodshed, but a duel is a different matter.  It would be an interesting contest.” 

Daern’thal’s upper lip twisted. 

“I will not fight your whore-goddess’ hound before I strike her down from the sky.  You will watch the day she falls, Pride, and learn some true _humility_ before I kill you.” 

Solas carefully folded his napkin and laid it aside his plate.  He leaned forward, hands on knees.

“It sounds like pride is a lesson you should learn instead, Daern’thal,” he said crisply.  “If you do not wish to fight, I suppose my mastery will go unchallenged, and you will keep your secrets and gnaw on them alone.” 

Daern’thal giggled madly at that, wine dripping off his lips. 

“I don’t think so, Pride. You forget our people have other contests, other kinds of battles.” 

Carys couldn’t understand what that meant. But Solas evidently did, his expression cooling. He leaned back from the table, crossing one foot over the other knee.  His hands laid limply in his lap.

“He would hardly suit you,” Anaris rebuked Daern’thal gently.

Daern’thal flicked his fingers to bat away the comment.  “So kind of you to care for my pleasure. But I do not.”

Solas laced his own hands across his stomach.  His mouth stretched out at the corners. 

“Let us say that I agree to your proposal…for this evening alone.  You know my honor would not permit me to renege.  But what is to say you have anything of interest to tell me at all?”

Daern’thal leaned in until the steam off the coals warped his features.   “I vow I’ll do better than tell you.  I’ll show you proof of my words,” he growled.  “Will you challenge my honor further?” 

Solas did not speak for a long minute.  Finally, he turned just until he could look at Carys out of the corner of his eye.

She had to be wrong about what they were discussing.  Solas would not…his name meant Pride, did it not? 

“Ma nuvenin,” he told Daern’thal, rising from his chair.  The other man did as well, letting his napkin fall to the ground. Daern’thal wiped his palms on his breeches, then held a hand out to Solas.

“Shall we go forth and arrange the battleground?” he asked, smirking at Solas.  

Solas ignored his hand, and preceded him out of the room without a backwards glance Carys and Hawke.  His shoulders were rigidly pulled back, but his gait was long and loose.  

Carys bit hard on the side of her cheek, hoping the pain would allow her to focus past her feelings and her aching sympathy for Solas. 

Hawke hopped down to the arm of the chair and shifted back into human form.

“Did that just happen?” she asked, looking at Carys, who miserably nodded. 

Anaris’ glance at her was not unkind, which somehow made it worse. 

“I would enjoy talking to you again before you leave,” he told Carys.  “For now, let me complete our dinner in one of our oldest rites, and then I would be honored to escort you both back to your companions.” 

He stood and held his hands over the fire. 

“I thank my servant Huren, who grew the crops we eat.  I thank my servant Huren, whose flesh nourished us this evening.  I thank my servant Huren, whose life sustained this fire,” he intoned.  He waved his hands, and the coals cooled to darkness.  In the center of the brazier, Carys could now see fragments of cracked bone amid the embers. 

Anaris nodded at her companionably.  “After you, my ladies.”    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: implied dub-con (not Lavellan), cannibalism


	12. In Which Lavellan Learns

Only a few hours remained before dawn, and Carys could not sleep.  The rough nap of the woolen sheets irritated her skin, as did the spikes and dust of the straw-tick mattress beneath.  She had slept on the ground for most of her life, but this cold stone room was uniquely unrestful.  By the faint snores emanating from the other bunks, though, she knew that the rest of her company did not share her disability.

Solas had not returned.

Lida and Felassan took his disappearance with Daern’thal in stride, but Carys still seethed with worry for him.  Despite the lack of speculation as to Solas’ whereabouts, there was an unspoken accord to remain in their shared room until the next day.  Nonetheless, Carys eventually tossed back her sheets and crept out of the room, boots in her hand.  She pulled the door shut behind her as soundlessly as possible.  It had no lock.  Lida set no wards, apparently considering the rules of hospitality to be guard enough.  Carys remembered the look in Daern’thal’s eye as he told Hawke about his dragon, and was not so certain. 

The halls were dark and deserted.  Small oil lamps were set far enough apart that shadows consumed her as she considered her destination. Carys could walk through the woods outside of Wycome blindfolded and never falter, but stone walls confused her senses and her native directional abilities.  She was not sure she could even locate the dining room, let alone the guest quarters housing Daern’thal’s people. 

She spun to fix the way back to the barracks in her memory, and choked on her own air when she came face to face with Marian Hawke- or face to tits, considering the difference in their heights.

“Oh _hello_ ,” Hawke said in a stage whisper.  “Where are we going?”

Carys pressed a hand to her chest and willed her heartbeat to slow. 

“By the Dread Wolf, Hawke!” she gasped.  “Why are you following me?”

And _how_ had the woman done so completely unnoticed?  A human in full armor usually made so much noise that every creature within leagues would flee.   Carys had laid eyes on the woman asleep in her bunk, drooling into the crook of her own elbow. 

“To see where you’re going,” Hawke non-answered, face open and guileless. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Carys said in riposte. 

Hawke smiled.  “Ah, so we’re just taking a relaxing midnight stroll? That sounds lovely.  I’ll join you.”  Hawke gave an elaborate bow, gesturing down the empty hall. 

Carys frowned.  Hawke didn’t move from her place, too close to Carys. Neither did Carys retreat. 

“I thought I would look around,” Carys finally admitted.

“Sounds like a wonderful plan,” Hawke said.  “Nothing terrible can come of snooping through the affairs of two ancient gods of evil.” 

“That’s not-“ Carys began to negate Hawke’s assumption, then realized the trap in her words.  There really wasn’t a very good explanation for what she was doing. 

“That’s not what I’m doing, and you know it,” she said quietly.  “You should go back.” 

Hawke’s face was knowing and terribly sympathetic. 

“He can take care of himself,” Hawke told Carys gently, clasping the elf by the shoulder. 

Carys shook her head. “How can you keep saying that?” she argued.  “You saw him set his shirt on fire just three days ago when he tried to cook dinner.”

Hawke’s mouth pulled at the corner.  “I don’t think he’s going to cook for Scarface, there,” she said.  “He had his reasons for going.  And I doubt he would thank you for charging in to rescue him, whether that’s out of Daern’thal’s torture chamber or out of his bed.” 

“His thanks are not required,” Carys snapped. 

Hawke sucked in a breath to argue further, and Carys cut her off. 

“I appreciate your concern,” she told Hawke, “but I can’t sit by and do nothing.  I know you think he’s dangerous and powerful but- he’s not. At least not yet.”

That part was becoming more and more apparent.  Solas was not a god, and evidenced no great powers or abilities.  Whatever he would become, he was far from it at this point. He was barely started down his journey to being Fen’Harel.  

“And he can’t take care of himself.  He never could.  Even if he is…stronger than he’s shown, he’s very, very bad at taking care of himself. He’s smart and brave, but he doesn’t think like other people.  He doesn’t know how other people will react.  He’s always surprised, when it goes differently than he expected,” Carys tried to convince Hawke.

Hawke set both her hands on Carys’ shoulders, looking down at her sadly.  “That’s probably true, but when it goes wrong this time, you can’t afford to have him blame you,” she said. 

“I know we’re here on his sufferance, but this entire journey means nothing if I can’t reach him,” Carys said, gently moving Hawke’s hands off of her. "I need to be there for the hard things, or he'll keep us at arm's-length forever.  I might be just as effective as his enemy as his friend."  

Hawke’s face darkened. “That’s not as true for me,” she said. 

Carys looked up at her quizzically.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean your boyfriend is the only one we know who can send us back through the Fade,” she said. “And I’m fonder of the world we left behind than he is.  Or you are, to put it plainly.” 

“Oh,” Carys said, feeling a sudden chill.  “Then perhaps you really had better go back without me.  I can leave you out of it.” 

Hawke grimaced.  “I’m not coming back with fewer people than went into the Fade,” she vowed.  “So you had just better mind your manners.” 

Hawke sighed, resigned, reaching back to scratch under her messy black hair.  “It’s truly an unfortunate situation if _I’m_ the one arguing for discretion.  Maker’s balls, I miss Varric.  This place is all wrong.  It’s just…” Hawke trailed off, then frowned, considering. 

“I may be the very last person whose advice you should listen to, but if you want him to see the world differently, you might start by helping him, instead of hindering him. People rarely listen to you once you start shouting at them that they’re doing it all wrong.”  

Carys managed a weak smile at that, remembering Solas’ dealings with the Dalish. 

“Well, let’s help him then. See if you can figure out why Daern’thal’s here.  Anaris hardly seems on the verge of invading the Evanuris. ” 

“Very true,” Hawke said, wrinkling her nose.  “Anaris can’t even afford to serve up roast beef, rather than roast gardener.  The Forgotten Ones are creepy but hardly making me quiver in terror.  I wouldn’t give them even odds against some of the meaner shades in the Sundermount graveyard.”  

Realizing a few beats afterwards that she had just casually admitted to defacing ancient Elvhen burial grounds, Hawke gave Carys a grimace of a smile and vowed to solve the mystery of the Enemies' new power.

* * * 

No matter how many turns she takes, no matter how many courtyards and halls and galleries she crosses, she sees no one.  It is after midnight and before dawn, true, but at Skyhold and the Winter Palace, and even in Adamant and Griffon Wing and Suledin Keep, a fortress of this size would never be completely quiet.  A fortress is like a body, which must respire and excrete and circulate at all hours of the day and night to remain alive.  Servants should be cleaning common areas, bakers should be preparing the day’s bread, butlers should be taking census of the small and valuable ornaments that decorate the rooms though which Carys passes. 

It is beautiful in a different way from the Sun’s Rest.  More personal.  There is a unity in the aesthetics of each room that tells Carys they have been all been selected to suit the tastes of one person.  There are murals that are not quite in Solas’ style but of the same family, and they are all to a scale that feels restful and intimate as she passes them, looking for some sign of life in the sprawling place.  They depict events lost to time and memory; kings and monsters and creatures wholly unfamiliar to Carys.  She wonders whether Solas knows their meaning.  She wonders where everyone is. 

Surely not everyone would be asleep.  Surely Solas would not….sleep.  After. 

But Carys hears no noise but the rasp of her boots on stone in the gaps between the thick, earth-toned rugs.  Even the night wind is shut out by thick wooden blinds over the windows, sealing the place against the cold air of the desert night. 

After finding none among the living or dead in her first circuit of the halls, Carys slipped the latch on a window and peered out into the night, her breath fogging the cold pane. Even the dim light of the lamps behind her made it difficult to see, but she thought there was a glow from the space beyond. 

The nearest door was slim and unobtrusive in the wall, with simple iron bands and a pull-latch.  The night sucked the warm air out past her when she opened it.  She stood in the doorway for a long minute, turning her head to find the source of the light, but her field of view terminated at a thick hedge a few feet from the door.  Casting a searching glance behind her, Carys found an unlit candleholder left in a niche near the door.

She lifted her hand to light the candle, but in an act of whimsy, conjured veil-fire instead of flame. Solas had after all been the one to teach her the spell.  And that light had eventually illuminated a great many things for her, his identity not the least. 

The chilly green-white glow was as good as candlelight to show her the gardens outside.  A gap in the hedge gave way to rows of elaborately planted beds.   Carys knelt and brought her candle closer to illuminate them.  There were dozens of different plantings, most completely new to her.  She spied blood lotus and rue, as well as felandaris, witherstalk, and plants she only dimly recognized from her Keeper’s faded parchments.  She bent close to a small flower with spindly stems that she thought might be heart’s ease when she heard a noise like a polite cough from behind her. 

She immediately spun, waving her candle to identify the source of the noise.  She missed the small figure on the first pass.  On the second, she thought it might be a child, hooded and cloaked.  

But when it said in measured yet piping tones, “please put that out.  Several of the herbs are sensitive to the magic of the Fade,” she identified little person as a spirit. 

After due consideration, she complied with its request, leaving them in total darkness while her eyes adjusted. 

After a few moments, she recognized the source of the glow that had drawn her out of doors.  There were banked braziers burning in several places around the garden, and even a glow from the edges of several raised beds that led her to surmise that coals had been packed in sand around a few especially fragile plants to keep them warm through the cold evening. 

“Thank you,” it said. “Who are you?”

Carys cocked her head and studied it.  Like few other spirits she had seen before, it closely resembled a living being.  It had dark skin, nearly black, but with a perfection and sheen that even Vivienne’s skin care regime could not manage. Its face was genderless, heart-shaped and flawlessly elvhen, with an apparent age of early adolescence.  The eyes that watched her in return glowed with the green of the Beyond. 

“Carys Lavellan,” she eventually replied, extending her hand.

It took her hand in that formal Elvhen clasp, kissing her fingers.  Its skin and lips were as cool as the night. 

“A true answer,” it judged. “But very uninformative.  Names are useless without context.  I asked who you were, not what you were called.” 

“Perhaps you might tell me first what you are called,” Carys said. 

Its eyebrows lifted as though she’d done something clever.  “You have disproved my generality.  My name does provide most of my context.  I am Study.”

“Aneth ara, Study,” Carys said.  “I am a guest of Anaris.” 

“As is everyone who walks under the sky in this place,” Study said, still unimpressed by her answer. “Do not be boring.  Tell me something I have not already surmised.” 

“Hm,” Carys said, smiling despite herself.  “You must be very well-informed, then.  Do you already know that I came with Solas?" 

“I might have guessed that, but I could not have been certain,” it said, a trifled miffed at her muted teasing.  “Pride has always had some unusual acquaintances. But he has not come to see me yet.  I am waiting here to show him some of my new discoveries.”

“You could show me,” Carys suggested, peering at the pair of clippers Study held.  There were potting benches and tables bearing standard alchemical equipment. 

“I might,” Study suggested. “If you told me some interesting things, and if you really did come with Pride.”  

Carys considered the many things that she knew but this world did not.  Few were harmless.  But Carys pulled a ribbon out of her pocket and tied back her hair, then extended her hand for the garden shears.

“Do you know a recipe for a balm against fire?  I believe I saw all the ingredients in the garden,” she said. 

Study readily handed over the tools, and Carys quickly gathered up the spindleweed and rashvine she needed, even adding a bit of amrita vein for a lasting emulsion. Study watched her carefully as she ground and heated the herbs to prepare the emulsion.  The process was so familiar to her that she could have done it half-asleep.  Had done it half-asleep. 

When the ointment was set, Carys presented it to Study with a great flourish. 

“It’s best fresh, but will last a day or so,” she said.  “It won’t protect an area that isn’t covered- like your eyeballs- so it’s not going to save you from being crisped if you catch a direct blast of dragon fire- but it saved my skin a time or two.” 

Study dipped a finger in the bowl and smeared it over its opposite palm. It sniffed the ointment. Before Carys could object, it lowered its treated hand directly onto a bed of coals. 

The ointment immediately sizzled and hissed, casting up a plume of foul-smelling smoke. 

“Elgar’nan!” Carys yelped, swearing in the name of the All-Father before she could recall that such epithets were not welcome here.  She grabbed the spirit’s palm and tugged it to her so that she could examine the damage.  Thankfully, there was none.  Her ointment had been effective. 

“A very valuable piece of information,” Study said, not heeding her frantic examination of its hand. “I did not know that recipe.  We shall have to discuss the ratios before you leave.” 

“Oh, Study,” Carys said, dropping its hand.  “What if I had been wrong?  Or trying to trick you?  You could have been badly hurt!”

She thought of Cole, and his fragile trust in his friends.   Of how that trust had been misused by Solas, when Cole would never have done the same. Was Study as vulnerable? 

But this spirit smiled knowingly.  “A negative result conveys as much information as a positive one.  More, sometimes.  If your ointment failed, I would have learned that you were either a liar or a fool.   Not that Pride keeps close company with either.”

Carys took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. 

“Do you know him well, then?” 

“As well as our divergent natures allow.  I have known him a long time, at least.  I have been here longer.  I found it difficult to obtain the answers to the questions I asked without physical interaction with the world.  Pride always counseled the opposite.”

Carys frowned.  “I don’t understand. You’re a spirit.   But you were in this world, and he was in the Fade?”

Study nodded, paused, then shook its head. “There are different ways of being.  Closer and further from the world that wakes.  I was closer, and he was farther.  For many thousands of years.  But that changed recently.”

Thousands?   And…how recently?

“About two decades ago, Pride left the Fade and became one of the Elvhen.   Now he visits his home only in dreams,” Study said with a tinge of sadness. “I have not had the opportunity to speak with him since.  I very much look forward to asking him about the experience.”

 * * * 

Carys had to have a little sit-down after Study’s casual revelations about Solas’ origins.  She sat down on a garden bench between two planters full of beautiful, poisonous flowers and put her head between her knees. 

 _In through your nose, out through your mouth_ , she told herself in her Keeper’s voice.  Carys was not one for hysteria.  She was the calm hand in a crisis.  That advice was for others who might panic when the aravel threw a wheel in the middle of a treeless plain, or when a baby came too early, or a wound threatened to spoil. Not Carys.  If you were panicking, you weren’t helping. 

Study puttered around her, mashing herbs and making little notations in a journal, despite the darkness.  It was very taken with her fire balm.  The spirit was apparently content to let her settle her racing mind without intervention. 

 _Solas was thousands of years old._   She had imagined as much.  It was difficult to hear that part plainly stated, but she’d already done the math.  She’d imagined that most of those thousands of years were spent in uthenera, but spending them in the Fade was a distinction without a difference.

 _Solas was twenty years old._ She indulged herself with one mental picture of him as a spotty, defiant adolescent.  He might look like a man of about her age, had likely looked like that his entire life.  Well. It explained his lesser standing with the rest of the Evanuris, not to mention what an idiot he’d been about anything practical.   A twenty-year-old Dalish might not even be an adult yet.  Might not have completed a hunt, or made a bow, or passed her trials as First.  No wonder he set his coat on fire.  

 _Solas wasn't always an elf._ That was the hardest part to accept.  She’d known he was different, that he held himself apart from others, even elves.  That he lacked a family, roots, kin. 

He is like Cole, she thought.  He was Pride, before he was Solas. 

She didn’t think he was quite to Solas yet. 

“Do you know where he is?” she finally asked Study. 

Study paused its labors before the beaker that rendered the tallow base of the ointment.  It tilted its head up in the same way she had seen Cole consult a plane closed to mortals.  

“Yes,” it said.  “He is learning.  It is a difficult lesson.” 

Carys shuddered, considering the different things that could mean.  Study turned its body away from the workbench and considered her, its motions graceful and inhuman.  It did not fiddle with its hands or cross its arms or do any of the things that people did while they thought about the answers to questions.  It was still as it thought.  

“I think you should go to him.  He is alone now.  I think he would learn more from you than he would alone, for the rest of this night.”   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long delay on this! And then the chapter got too long, and the part I was dreading got pushed to the next installment anyway. But now that I'm gritting my teeth to write the stuff that scares me, it should be out soon. 
> 
> Anyway, how 'bout that trailer??
> 
> I'm going to do my best to keep this post-canon and luckily my personal speculation lines up nicely with the new concept art!
> 
> Due to Tumblr's demise, I now have a Twitter. I don't so much tweet as lurk (and view NSFW fan art) but you can find me @YTCShepard
> 
> Thank you for hanging in here with me as we wait for DA4: Wolf Hunt.


	13. In Which There Are Dragons

She found him alone in an empty room. The sight of him whole and apparently hale was a momentary relief; she entered the dark and vacant parlor facing his broad shoulders.  He sat on a divan, his posture inelegant and unbalanced for once.  Carys did not make much noise as she hurried to Solas’ side, but a small shift of his head indicated that he was aware of her approach.  She circled around to his front and sank to her heels once she had a good look at him.

Perhaps someone who had not known him so well- would not know him so well- would have seen little amiss. He had lost his shirt and shoes somewhere, true, but he held his ornate, fur-trimmed coat shut across his chest with one elegant hand.  His feet were crossed and tucked away beneath the sofa.  His other hand clutched an open bottle of liquor.  The mess of his hair could be explained away as mere dishevelment on the end of a long evening’s revels. 

But Solas’ pupils were wide drowning pools, and his lips were pale.  He did not lift the bottle to his lips; it was full, untouched.  His fingers trembled minutely on the clouded glass. He looked straight through her as she squatted in front of him.  Shock, Carys thought.  He was in shock.

“Solas?  Would you like to come with me?”  she asked slowly, adopting the tone she used on injured animals and strangers’ children. 

He did not respond verbally but proffered his bottle instead.  Carys accepted it and stashed it below the divan.  She did not smell any of it on him.  As his arm retreated, Carys caught sight of a line of welts circling his wrist, and unthinking, reached up to catch his hand.

His other hand immediately snaked out, seizing her own before she could touch him.  His grip was hard enough to bruise, collapsing the small bones in her wrist.  He released it after a painful squeeze.  She gritted her teeth against making a sound.

“Ir abelas,” she said, still using her healer’s voice.  “I did not think.  I will not touch you without your permission.”  

Solas’ pupils tracked her face for the first time, his attention finally narrowing on her.  He appeared to gather a bit of himself. 

He glanced away against a closed door at the other end of the room, brows lowering.

“Are we safe?” Carys said, in a lower voice.  “Will Daern’thal return tonight?” 

Solas looked back at her. “No,” he finally said, his voice low and hoarse.  He did not indicate which question he had answered.  “I should go back to…” his voice broke off.   He let the hand holding his collar shut slump listlessly into his lap.  He swayed a bit where he sat.  He blinked several times, his gaze losing Carys’ again.  His coat gaped open, revealing a pattern of bruises down his chest.  Carys swallowed hard.

“Let’s go back to your own rooms, then, ma sa lath,” she said, voice pitched to go little further than her own lips.   “You should rest.”  

He nodded but made no move to stand.  Carys prompted him by pushing to her own feet and holding out her hand, palm up.  Solas stared at it for a moment as though it were an unknown weapon or a live animal, but eventually seized it with a firm grip, pulling hard as he lurched to his feet.  He nearly knocked her off balance, and she had a difficult moment keeping him upright without throwing an arm around his waist.

She supposed he’d been touched enough already that night. 

He held his grip tight on her hand as they slowly made their way back to their wing of the structure.  There was no contact between them other than his cool, damp palm against her own, but Carys felt as though her entire pulse was ringing against that small bit of contact. Several times he almost stumbled, and Carys held very still and stiff, letting him regain his balance by pushing against her hand.  

They eventually reached a nondescript door in a hall adjacent to the barracks where the remainder of their party slept. 

“Your rooms?” Carys asked and Solas nodded. 

He fumbled a key from his pocket and tried to fit it in the lock, but his hand shook so hard that he dropped the key. Carys wordlessly retrieved it and opened the door, stepping through before Solas could think to forbid her. 

She took a deep breath as Solas sank to the edge of the humble double bed in the corner of the sparsely furnished room.  He watched her warily as she closed the door and locked it behind her.  

“Let’s see it then,” she said. 

He lifted one eyebrow, playing dumb. 

“Whatever injury you’re concealing,” she told him.  “I’ve seen-“ she cut herself off.  She’d seen him stand up after taking a blow to the head in battle and shake it off with a draught of elfroot tonic.  His present weakness frightened her more than she could say.  But she could hardly confess that she knew how much trauma he could take and continue on unimpeded.  “I’ve dealt with a variety of injuries.  I can help,” she amended. 

That much was true, at least.  The highest and most frequent use of a Keeper’s magic was healing her clan.  Keeper Deshanna had her healing boot blisters and bow splinters from the week her magic manifested. Carys had no great and special talent for healing, just as she’d had no true ability with the magics of war.  Her healing abilities were too slow and small to be of use in battle, just as her fire and lightning never equaled the power of Dorian’s magic, let alone Solas’.  That wasn’t the true worth of a Keeper, after all. A Keeper’s magic was for the clan, but a Keeper’s magic did not make a Keeper.  But Carys had seen people hurt in just about every way a person could be hurt and survive, or not.  She would heal Solas as she had healed her clan. 

Carys had even seen the aftermath of a clansman caught alone and unawares by human bandits, and what he’d suffered.  Had held his hand, helped heal his wounds.  The ones that could be seen, and the ones that lingered invisibly. 

Solas’ gaze sharpened on her own, and his lower lip stiffened as though he were tempted to be difficult about it.

“I know you cannot heal yourself,” she hastened to add.  If he challenged her on that statement, she would simply note that the unfortunate incident involving their dinner and the open campfire had been remedied by Felassan and Lida, with respect to Solas’ singed forearm and the runaway blaze, respectively.

His expression hardly changed.  The silent standoff between them continued, and the feet of space between them grew harder.

“Or do you want me to get Felassan instead?” Carys finally offered.  She needed to remember the small role she currently played in his life. This was barely their second private conversation.

At that, he finally shook his head and gestured her closer. 

“No, leave Felassan to his own, tonight,” he said, voice still hoarse and rusty.  “Do not speak of this,” he commanded her.  “Do not say a word.”

Carys nodded, a lump forming in her throat as she approached.  In one movement, Solas pushed off his robe and flopped over to his stomach, lying face-first on the bed with his fisted hands extended above him.

It took her a moment to make sense of it; his back was a mess of blisters, the entire space red and inflamed such that Carys could scarcely discern the shape of his muscles beneath his skin.

She froze, anger and disgust surging through her veins like oil through a lamp’s wick.  She held her hands in balled fists behind her back until she was certain they would not shake and held her tongue until her voice could emerge cool and calm.  A Keeper was still when all others would move.  A Keeper was an oak when the high winds would blow. 

“I need to touch you for this,” she said, chilling her voice to smoothness.  Solas clenched his eyes shut, nodding his chin. 

She stripped her hands from their gloves and laid five fingertips against his broken skin- not from her right hand but from the left, drawn from the Fade. 

Solas hissed air through his teeth and stiffened at the small contact.  

“Hush, emma lath,” she told him, letting a stream of meaningless reassurance fall from her lips as she called power from the Fade. 

It took longer than she wished; it had been a long time since she had cause to do this.  The Inquisition, even in its much-diminished form, had far superior healers.  Carys ruthlessly shoved her self-doubt aside and sank into a light healing trance, using the words of a Dalish children’s song about a foolish bear who fell out of a tree as a mantra. 

She healed the inflammation that was building in Solas’ muscles first. She leeched the toxins from his blood and burned them from his body.  She broke up the bruises blooming from his neck to his lower back.  And finally she repaired the tears in his skin as best she could, moving her hand in a grid across his body to erase each blister and cruel slash from his skin.  She was not quite skilled enough to eliminate all trace of what Daern’thal had done, but the marks were not visible more than inches away from his skin.

Solas flexed his shoulders to feel the restored range of movement but did not shift his position.  His eyes remained closed. 

“Now let’s see the rest of it,” Carys said. 

She could feel some additional injury with her magic, but was not skilled enough to cure it without the visual cue.

Solas finally turned over to look up at her, upper lip curling in disgust.

“If _this_  is what it takes for you to ask for access to my trousers, I fear we may not be as compatible as I had believed,” he said, voice light and mocking.

Carys kept an impassive face, but some of the pain and heartbreak she felt must have slipped through, because Solas’ expression hardened. 

“Ma nuvenin,” he grunted, hands twisting at the laces of his trousers.  He flipped back to his stomach and roughly pushed his trousers down over his hips.

There were lash marks there too, and marks carved into this pale skin which had been made by fingernails or perhaps teeth.  Carys suppressed a surge of nausea and dizziness, summoning the will that had kept her head above the waters since the day she first fell from the Fade.  She said nothing to Solas until the healing was complete.  But she could not prevent the words that tumbled from her lips next. 

“Why,” she asked, voice finally breaking, now that it was all over. 

“Pardon?” Solas said, shifting his body so that he could do up his trousers again.  He slowly rolled to a seated position, testing the range of his motion and apparently finding it satisfactory.

“Why would you let him do this to you,” she said in a quiet voice. She knit her hands together in her lap and turned towards the door to give him a little privacy.  He pulled the pillow from the head of the bed, fluffed it, and lay back down with it cradled to his chest.  

“This is nothing,” he said dismissively. 

Carys knuckles whitened where her hands fit together.

“It is not nothing,” she told him.  “It is not- and nothing could be worth this.  Why this?  Why would you-“ she bit her tongue at Solas’ expression.

“Because it is what he asked for,” he told her, still feigning nonchalance. The tight anger on his face did not match his tone.  “That is the game.  I had one request.  He sought to make me change it.  To ask him to stop.  Or to ask for something else.  I did not. And so I won.” 

Carys’ chest heaved in a dry sob.  “Is this what winning looks like?  Is this what Mythal asks of you? What could he possibly give you that would be worth this?”

Solas surged up, spitting out his response directly into her face.

“This is _nothing_ ,” he spat out, repeating himself.  “You know  _nothing_ of what I would do for Mythal.  This is just flesh.  This is just my body.  This is all the others want from me.   A body that can fuck or fight or bleed or… I do not need it.  It is not _me_.  He had none of _me_.”  

Carys blinked in shock at the certainty in his words.   Even Solas seemed taken aback by his vehemence.  

“Do not think me unaware of what this world wants from me,” he said, words more precise.  “Or that I do not know what I want in return.”  

Carys was still fighting back tears.  Her throat felt swollen shut.  She nodded at him, not trusting her voice. 

Solas swung his legs over the edge of the bed to parallel her own.  He mimicked her pose and brought his hands together in his lap. His own voice was gentler when he spoke again. 

“And I do thank you. Ma serannas.  For your assistance this evening.  I understand that this world is- difficult for you.  I had the same problem, at first.”  

She turned her head to him, face stricken.  She did not want to believe that he was already accustomed to the cruelty of this place.  She thought it might already be too late, long before he took up the mantle of Fen’Harel, if that was the case. 

He lifted a hand, strong again, and let it catch in her hair where she had hurriedly knotted it up.  A few locks were already falling loose and around her face.  He pulled at the fabric tie holding her hair in its bun and let it tumble free down her back.  She held still and allowed him the liberty.  He carded his fingers through the thick mass then shifted closer to her so that he could put both his hands into the white fall of it.  He separated it into five sections and began braiding it with smooth, practiced gestures.  When it was done, it still fell to her waist, but only framed her face to the chin. 

“There,” he said, satisfied. “You should not keep it back so tightly.” 

Carys tried to force a smile to her lips for his sake. 

“Ma nuvenin,” she said. “For you, I will try it.” 

He pulled up one corner of his mouth and leaned closer to her again. 

She forgot him for a moment. Because so many years later, he would kiss her the same way.  Turn his head at the same precise angle.  Open his lips after the same number of seconds.  Warm her face with his breath for the same count of heartbeats.  Touch her face in the same place.  She forgot, for a moment, who she was kissing.  Because three years before, or thousands of years later, it had happened, and would happen, the same way.

But his eyes gave it away. When Carys opened her eyes and pulled back for the space of a breath, his expression was closed and knowing and more than a little cruel. 

He thought he had caught her.  Thought he’d found her out.  Tricked her. Proved something about her. 

This man still thought he was winning a game. 

Carys’ hands balled up and she felt the sudden, terrible urge to slap him. Carys had never struck a loved one in her entire life.  But Solas’ glittering, diamond-edged look, which classed her as no better than anyone else simply because she could not help wanting him engendered a burst of renewed anger in her heart.  She wanted to scream at him for accepting a place in this monstrous world.  She wanted to burn him with her anger on his behalf until he felt it too.  She wanted to lift up the Veil now and see Daern’thal, Anaris, the Evanuris, and even Mythal burn if this was what they would make of him.  

But she realized that there were many people in this world eager to teach Solas anger.  To teach him hate.  To teach him hardness. 

She wondered if anyone at all had ever thought to show him gentleness instead.  So she only took his hand in her own, green veil quartz over warming skin, and told him no.

“No, ma sa lath,” she said gently.  “Oh, no. No, that is not what I want from you. I would never want you to hurt yourself on me.”  She patted his hand and pushed it back to his own lap. 

The hard look on his face dissolved after a span of breaths into faded confusion.  He rubbed a hand across his face and turned away.  

“I-“ he began, swallowed hard, began again.  “I should not have done that.  I apologize. You say-“ he licked his lips.  “There are words you call me, sometimes.  And the way you look at me.  And yet other times I do not believe you like me very much. I am not certain I have given you much cause to like me.  I have done nothing for you as of yet.”

His smile was apologetic, and Carys gave a soft laugh in acknowledgement.  

“Perhaps you have more to learn than you thought, Solas, if you cannot see how liking and caring and helping may be entirely disconnected,” she said. 

“I do begin to see,” he said ruefully.  

That moment might have been an opening, had the floor not vibrated beneath their feet.  It was barely noticeable, but Solas frowned as quickly as Carys detected the movement.  Ten seconds later, the shaking returned.  A flower vase in a wall bracket wobbled.

There was a clatter of noise from the hall, culminating in someone pounding on Solas’ door.  

Quick as a magebolt, Solas summoned a barrier around them both and pushed Carys behind him when she would have opened the door. 

When Solas unlatched it and pulled it wide, the door revealed Hawke and an abashed, rumpled Felassan, arms supporting a semi-conscious young dwarven man between them.

“Oh hello!”  Hawke said cheerfully.  “Sorry to interrupt.  But I believe we should leave.  I found your friend here in the dungeons.  And my new little friend as well.  Anaris seems a little put out about that.  The whole sneaking into the dungeons business.  And taking people out of the dungeons.  Did you hear him just now?  He’s a dragon.  _I_ want to be a dragon.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw off-screen dub-con, trauma. 
> 
> This chapter is pretty dark. It took me a long time to write it. But I just had to get through it. I believe strongly that something like this happened to Solas back in Elvhenan, and that this was commonplace in this world. 
> 
> Anyway, if you're pissed at me, come yell at me @YTCShepard
> 
> "New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth/  
> They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth"


End file.
